Eight Treasures Vegetarian

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I had the great opportunity to dine in Eight Treasures Vegetarian Restaurant in Chinatown. We had a generous 10 courses banquet that only a wedding could provide. The food included a completed chinese banquet dishes from shark's fin soup to dessert. Since it was a food tasting for the coming Chinese New Year, we tossed a yu sheng for good luck. The 10 courses are :1) Veg. Shark's fin with white fungus & wolfberries. It was surprisingly tasty. The Konnyaku was a good imitation of seafood. There were finely-cutted beancurd sheet, enoki mushroom and white fungus. Was so delicious I asked for 2 bowls!2) Fruit Salad Vegetarian Chicken.The vegetarian chicken had potato crispy skin on the outside but not oily. The mayonnaise was also vegetarian.3) Thai styled Cod Fish.It was wheat-based soy. The texture was soft and taste very much like fish. The seaweed gives it a seafood flavour.4) Vegetarian Abalone Mushrooms with Tau Pau & Seasonal Greens.The braised mushroom was well-marinated. It was plump and tasty. Lightly steamed boccoli was crunchy and not soggy.5) Cereal Prawns.Lightly fried cereal was crunchy but not oily or soggy. The prawns was realistic in taste and texture.6) Fragrant Yam RingThe yam was fresh and not oily. Good seasoning.7) Honey Sauce Veg. PorkIt was visually realistic and attractive. 8) Braised Yee Fu NoodlesTasty but not oily noodles. Full of shiitake mushroom and tasty mock ham.9) Yu ShengThe salmon was konnyaku. It was very bouncy. The seasoning was just right - not too sweet. 10) Mango puddingNot too sweet mango pudding. Was a perfect finish. continue reading

Hi all,I am fortunate to be invited for another food tasting by OpenRice. This time it is the vegetarian restaurant call Eight Treasures Vegetarian Restaurant.We were treated to their CNY Set Menu for this year. ($368+Set for 6-8 Pax). It consist of a 9 course meal. Veg.Sharks'Fin with Bamboo Fungus, & Wolfberries It was surprisingly good almost like the real thing. Our lovely hospitable host Ms Yenna said the Chef uses "Konnyaku" to create the mock SharksFin.Fruit Salad Veg.ChickenAnother surprise delicious dish for me. The Veg.Chicken was crispy and the inside is made with potato mash. The dressing is eggless Mayo and the fruit salad i tasted green apples, pineapple and mango. Thai Style Veg.Cod FishDefinately my favourite. I could eat it with rice every other day. The Thai sauce was very good not too spicy and with the generous serving of slice shredded carrots and cucumber. The Veg.Cod Fish even look like the real thing. Was told they were so detailed in their presetation, they even use "seaweed" to create what looks like the fish skin at the side. Veg.Abalone Mushroom & Tou Pau with Seasonal GreensBeautifully presented and i cant wait to try their rendition of the Abalone. To my surprise it was rather close except it just didn't have that extra flavour and the slight rubbery texture. But otherwise a fairly good take on the real stuff.Cereal Veg. Prawn When this dish arrive i was so excited partly because i could smell the aroma of the crispy fried cereal. I was alittle skeptical about how are they going to replicate prawns. The first bite of the crispy veg.prawn blew me away. It was superb and i would have been fooled if not knowing i was in a vegetarian restaurant. Another hit dish for me.Fragrant Yam RingWhat can i say... another excellent rendition of a classic zhichar dish. Hey is that dice chicken i'm chewing? hehe.Braised YeeFu NoodlesThis noodle dish is usually served during chinese wedding dinners. and i've been to numerous wedding dinners and eaten many times. But Eight Treasures Vegetarian Restaurant rendition of this classic popular wedding dinner dish was just spot on. In fact i find that it was the best YeeFu noodles i have ever eaten. I can only say WOW! Another Hit dish for me.Rainbow Yu Sheng VegUnfortunately this dish was the least favourite for me. Don't get me wrong. Its not bad or anything. Its just seems rather ordinary to me comparing to the other excellent dishes that were served earlier. The only thing that excite me about this dish is the "veg. salmon fish slice" that was serve. It is made of "Konnyaku" which was also the main ingredient for the veg.sharkfin soup earlier. But then again its a CNY Set Menu and it's a "Must have" dish i suppose. Fruity Mango PuddingA refreshing dessert after the meal. I like the chunks of fresh mango cubes with the pudding. Definately better than those timsum restaurants that i ate. Good Job.To end this review i would like to give special thanks to Zenna our warm and awesome host and also the crew of OpenRice Singapore who were there with us during the food tasting. Thank you. continue reading

For the full review and more photos, head over to http://toroamtheworld.blogspot.com/2016/01/food-review-eight-treasures-vegetarian.htmlLast week I had my first vegetarian dining experience, with an 8-course meal to boot! Eight Treasures Vegetarian Restaurant is a family business that sells purely vegetarian food, and they've been running for 9 years now at a three-storey shophouse in Chinatown.As part of the OpenRice tasting, we were treated to their Chinese New Year 8-course set menu for 8-10pax, which cost $368+.Sharks' Fin with White Fungus and Wolfberries: First up was this soup, which was a good take on the actual sharks' fin soup, and much much more eco-friendly! The sharks' fin is the white strands in the above picture, and is made of konnyaku jelly, which withstands heat better than agar. The white fungus has a QQ texture and there were enoki mushrooms inside.Fruit Salad Veg. Chicken: The chicken is made of potato while the skin is actually beancurd skin. To cater to the vegans, the mayonnaise is made without using eggs.Thai Style Veg. Cod Fish: The fish is served looking like a cod fish. It is made of wheat and soybean, and the texture is made to feel like you're chewing on fish meat! The Thai sauce is also made in house, and it was just nice to give you a little kick of the spiciness.Veg. Abalone Mushroom and Tou Pau with Seasonal Greens: The presentation was quite nice, with the broccoli at the outer rim and abalone slices layering on top of the mushrooms. Once again the abalone is made of konnyaku, and the mushrooms were really juicy and had that earthiness taste.Cereal Veg. Prawn: This is my favourite dish out of the many good ones! The prawns are also made of konnyaku, and the texture was ON POINT! If I was blindfolded and unaware that this is vegetarian, I'd have thought I was eating the real prawns. The batter wasn't too greasy, but I'd have preferred it a bit thinner.Fragrant Yam Ring: It was a good dish overall. There were mock chicken meat in it and it was very tasty too!Braised Yee Fu Noodles: A common dish served at wedding dinners, I like this dish because it was delicious, with the noodles having the wok hei and stir-fried with lots of veggies!Honey Sauce Veg. Pork: Zenna, the boss's daughter who was hosting us, very generously let us try this signature dish even though it's not part of the CNY set menu. Firstly, the appearance of the dish can already win you over. It looks just like the actual pork belly, and you can see the distinct layers! Secondly, the taste was equally good too! The konnyaku jelly used to make the 'meat' was soft, yet retaining some bite to mimick the actual pork meat. Highly recommended!Rainbow Yu Sheng Veg.: This was supposed to be the first dish but we decided to leave it till the end. This was pretty much the same as the normal ones you can find out there, just that the 'salmon' is also made of konnyaku jelly! It looks just like salmon sashimi (though it's cut more rectangularly) and tastes as slimy and chewy too! Now you don't have to worry about whether the fish is fit for consumption, given the recent spate of freshwater fish incidents.Fruity Mango Pudding: I thought this mango pudding was a bit sweet. Other than that it's an appropriate dessert - something light and refreshing after so many dishes. (verall, Eight Treasures Vegetarian Restaurant is the place to try tasty vegetarian dishes that will impress even the non-vegetarians! It changed my impression of vegetarian food. They use a lot of soy beans, konnyaku jelly in their food which are healthier too, and don't use egg, onions or garlic. For those of you who are interested to visit them during the upcoming CNY period, they are open every day and reservations are strongly encouraged!Thank you Zenna for being a wonderful and friendly host and OpenRice for the tasting! continue reading

This 2016, gather round your family at Eight Treasures Vegetarian. This restaurant of nearly a decade long history has ushered many Chinese New Years with their loyal regulars – and it’s not hard to see why with their family-friendly, creative vegetarian dishes alongside traditional classics.Eight Treasures Vegetarian is dedicated to ensure all their dishes are strictly vegetarian, yet contrary to popular belief, their line-up of dishes are appealing in taste, texture and variety. Their CNY Set Menu includes:$168+ Set (3-4 persons)Rainbow Yu ShengProsperity Vegetarian Sharks’ FinTeochew Style Vegetarian FishMushroom with Seasonal GreensCereal Vegetarian PrawnsBraised Yee Fu NoodlesFruity Mango Pudding$368+ Set (6-8 persons)Rainbow Yu ShengVegetarian Sharks’ Fin with White Fungus & WolfberriesFruit Salad Vegetarian ChickenThai Style Vegetarian Cod FishVegetarian Abalone Mushroom & Tou Pau with Seasonal GreensCereal Vegetarian PrawnsFragrant Yam RingBraised Yee Fu NoodlesFruity Mango Pudding$498+ Set (8-10 persons)Rainbow Yu ShengVegetarian Sharks’ Fin with Bamboo, Fungus, WolfberriesTeochew Steamed Vegetarian Cod FishGinseng Vegetarian Chicken with ChestnutsCreamy Pumpkin Vegetarian PrawnsVegetarian Abalone & Mushroom with BroccoliYam Ring with Golden NuggetsHeng Hua NoodlesRed Bean with Sweet LotusThis article focuses on the set meant for 6-8 persons.Recommended: in-house Chinese herbal tea which is caffeine-free and lightly sweetened with rock sugar. It is healthy and remains appealing, with eight ingredients in it, including: chrysanthemum, goji, luohan guo and ginseng. Suitable for elderly and children. I love it so much, I had my cup refilled so many times!Toss to new sweet beginnings here with the colourful Rainbow Yu Sheng, dressed in classic sweet plum sauce! The friendly and affable lady at Eight Treasures blessed us with each of the greetings as she pour over the sauces and ingredients into the yu sheng adeptly. The ‘salmon’ used here is made of konnyaku jelly, so rest your worries about health issues on raw fish consumption. The yu sheng here is not too sweet like the usual, a welcoming change from previous years. This is a plate of yu sheng that we can all finish.I was pleasantly surprised to find an environmentally friendly version of the sharks’ fin. Some may still find it necessary to include sharks’ fin during important celebratory days, so here’s a fine compromise – the Vegetarian Sharks’ Fin with White Fungus & Wolfberries which included a tasty and hearty combination of enoki mushrooms, beancurd skin, white fungus, mock ham, wolfberries and konnyaku-jelly-made sharks’ fin. They did an interesting spin on the usual sharks’ fin dish with a sweeter ring to it, almost like a dessert soup.The Fruit Salad Vegetarian Chicken was a delight – from the moment it was placed upon the table, I was impressed how much it actually looked like chicken. Of course, most non-vegetarians might be skeptical:Why would a vegetarian restaurant bother mimicking meat products?Vegetarian cuisine remains quite an enigma for people who are used to having meat and dairy products in their daily diet. By having dishes that are similar to meat, it would provide a smoother transition for people who are thinking of changing their dietary lifestyle (completely or partially).Eight Treasures Vegetarian does a good job at bridging this gap – I have never really considered trying vegetarian cuisine on a regular (weekly or biweekly) basis because I always thought vegetarian food would be very bland or strange.This first main dish changed my impression.Handmade from soy and wheat-based ingredients, the ‘chicken’ was so freshly crispy on the outside, stuffed with potato fillings on the inside, and drizzled with a generous amount of vegan mayo to go along. It didn’t taste like chicken, which would be a tall order, but it was still delicious in another way. It is a bit mind-boggling, but at the same time, I would imagine fellow non-vegetarians like me would be able to enjoy it quite well. The refreshing fruit salad is the bed upon which the chicken/potato was resting on, which makes the entire dish lighter and much easier on the palate.The Thai Style Vegetarian Cod Fish was my favourite dish of the entire set amidst the impressive luxurious items, because… how could this not be fish? I would love to have this everyday! The ‘cod fish’ had an extremely similar layered texture, smooth and soft, while the ‘fish skin’ was made of seaweed which assumes the taste of the oceans. The cod fish was amped up with the piquant sweet, sour and spicy Thai homemade sauce with a fragrant hint of lemongrass. The sauce was thick and extremely satisfying, with pangs of spiciness hitting the perfect spots on the tastebuds. It’s not overly spicy, just sufficiently so. This will surely win over the hearts of many, regardless whether you like spicy food or not.I like how the set menu actually paces our appetite, with a lighter dish of Vegetarian Abalone Mushroom with Tou Pau and Seasonal Greens made of shiitake mushrooms and blanched broccoli (done to perfection, no over-or-under cooking) with a savoury and appetizing sauce to go along.Before long, we were once again impressed with this jaw-dropping Cereal Vegetarian Prawns which could fool anyone to be real prawns in terms of texture and even taste! Of course if you were to look at the cross-section of the prawns, you can tell by sight it isn’t. At that moment, I realized that making vegetarian cuisine is really an art form.It can easily vie with other cereal prawn dishes made with real prawns in terms of taste, with an aromatic and crunchy coat of malt cereal, with QQ bouncy texture of the prawns. For people with dietary restrictions that cannot eat seafood or prawns.. this is your chance to finally enjoy it again!Yam Rings! A well-loved dish in most family dinners or celebratory tze-char meals, this is of no exception especially with a restaurant who has chefs experienced in making it. Its deep-fried exterior ensures a crispy skin with a light oily fragrance without the heaviness. Cashew nuts, baby corns, mushrooms abound within it.I always associate the Braised Yee Fu Noodles with wedding dinners, and I would say that this is above average. There is much more heart and effort in making this as compared to the usual ones I’ve had which were probably ‘obligatory wedding dishes’.If you are coming by Eight Treasures, you have got to try the Dongpo ‘meat’ (not included in the set) which was an eye-opener. I have to reiterate that this is vegetarian and not real meat of course, but the chefs here managed to create a trilayered meat to mimic the fatty layers of the original dongpo meat. As it wasn’t fats, it was easy to reach for a few in without getting full.We ended the night with a dessert, the Fruity Mango Pudding which was simple and didn’t hide any more surprises. It looks like a small serving but it was just perfect for one person to finish nicely.Most of the restaurant tables are located on the 2nd and 3rd floor accessible only by stairs. There is limited table seating on the 1st floor, so book early even for non-CNY periods.Takeaways of Happy Reunion Pen Cai (Vegetarian) is available at $168, Lucky Yu Sheng at $28.80 or $38.80 .Please note that a 20% cash deposit is required to confirm all reservations during the CNY period. A receipt will be issued and no cancellations are allowed.CNY period lunch and dinner sessions11am – 12.30pm1-2.30pm3-4.30pm5-6.30pm7-8.30pm9-10.30pmCall 65347727 for reservations. continue reading

Located opposite the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple & Museum is this Chinese vegetarian restaurant that has been established since 2007. Step into this 3-storey shophouse restaurant and you will be warmly welcomed by its friendly staff and tasteful decor. As Chinese New Year (CNY) is just about a month away, the restaurant will be serving its CNY Set Menus from eve to the 15th day of CNY and I was one of the lucky Openricers to be invited for a food tasting of its $368+ set menu. What We Ate:There are a total of 9 dishes for this set menu and we started with the Sharks' Fin with White Fungus & Wolfberries (发财素鱼翅).The mock sharks' fin was made from Konnyaku Jelly to give a crunchy and QQ texture. With a generous serving of the white fungus, mock ham, beancurd sheets, wolfberries and enoki in the soup, I couldn't really tell that it was a vegetarian dish. Not bad!Following, the Fruit Salad Vegetarian Chicken (喜气洋洋 - 沙律素鸡) was served。How would one know that this was mock chicken when the dish looked so much like the real thing?  This was one of my favourite dishes as the deep fried "chicken" skin which was made with beancurd skin was really crispy. The beancurd skin was stuffed with potato filling, topped with vegan mayonnise and there was a generous serving of mixed fruits salad at the bottom too. Next, we also had a taste of the appetising Thai Style Vegetarian Cod Fish (年年有余 - 泰式素鳕鱼). Just like the chicken dish, this dish was as great as it looked and it's one of my favourites too.  The Thai tom yam spicy flavour, an in-house specialty sauce on the vegetarian cod fish made from soy-fibre and wheat was tangy. It may be quite spicy for those who can't take spicy food, nonetheless this definitely whets the appetite! After 2 strong flavoured dishes, we had something healthier and greener - Vegetarian Abalone Mushroom with Tau Pau & Seasonal Greens (花好月圆 - 鲍鱼冬菇豆包时蔬).The shitake mushrooms and abalone mushrooms were placed in the middle of the dish, accompanied with red wolfberries and green broccoli for a nice colour combination. The braised in-house sauce was not salty and paired well with the mushrooms and broccoli. Thereafter, the Cereal Vegetarian Prawns (嘻嘻哈哈 - 麦片素虾) were served and we all looked in awe as it really looked like real prawns. This dish was a hot favourite amongst many of us. Although the "prawns" were deep-fried, they didn't feel oily. In fact it was very crunchy and tasty. Some even commented that it tasted exactly like the real prawn (I can't comment on that since I can't eat real prawns anyway haha). Regardless this was great!Next up was the Fragrant Yam Ring (一家甜蜜 - 佛砵飘香). The ring was deep fried till crisp yet didn't feel greasy as we bited into it. There was generous fragrant yam filling topped with assorted vegetable and mushrooms too, so much so that I really feel bloated after eating this.Just like most Chinese sit-down dinners, the second last dish was Braised Yee Fu Noodles (幸福伊面). By this time, it was really hard to eat much carbo. Hence although the noodles were pretty tasty with no salty aftertaste, I could only eat a bit to sample the taste. Some of my fellow Openricers commented it was one of the best Yee Fu Noodles they had tasted.Finally, after eating so many dishes together, we were presented with the Rainbow Yu Sheng (七彩鱼生) for our first safe Lo-Hei of the year (no fear of raw fish). As with the other vegetarian dishes, Konnyaku Jelly was used to make the vegetarian salmon slices and I applaud the delicate effort of the chef. It looked so real, even with the fish "lines"! Probably because of the jelly texture, the "salmon" was very chewy. Nice alternative for the traditional Yu Sheng especially amidst all the raw fish bacteria scares now.The last dish, our dessert to end the meal, was a bowl of Fruity Mango Pudding (甜甜蜜蜜 - 芒果布丁) served individually. Frankly, before the dessert was served, I hadn't pinned high hopes on it for most restaurants would be serving this dessert in a bowl of syrup with chopped mango slices and pudding bits. I had least expected it would come in such a lovely presented serving! The mango pudding texture was very silky smooth and slided down easily into my stomach haha. The cut mangoes were a tad sour but tasted very fresh. A great dessert to end the meal!Surprise treat from the hostur friendly host Zenna offered to let us try the restaurant specialty - Honey Sauce Vegetarian Pork (蜜汁素东坡肉) that has been on the regular menu since the opening of the restaurant.Gosh, the appearance of this dish definitely could be passed off as a meat dish in any Chinese restaurant! The vegetarian pork was coated with a tangy sauce and tastewise, it was as if we were eating real fatty pork. No wonder this dish has been a favourite for many customers and stays strong for the past 9 years.Eight Treasures has proven that staying meatless does not mean that the meal will be tasteless. I would gladly recommend the restaurant to non-vegetarian friends who are looking for an alternative dining experience and vegetarian friends who are looking for quality vegetarian meals at reasonable prices.  continue reading