Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Hey PPK, I am wondering if there are any dishes that you can find at Chinese restaurants that just happen to be vegan. What dishes do you guys get when you go to Chinese restaurants? Do you only haunt vegan Chinese places or have you managed to find good options at Chinese restaurants that aren't strictly vegan?

There's a restaurant here that doesn't have a single vegan thing on the menu, but if you ask they will veganize anything (within reason of course) for you, I usually get the home-style tofu dish with spring rolls. There's a lot of Chinese dishes that are vegetarian at other restaurants, but I usually have to ask to make sure its vegan or can be made vegan on request.

I would just caution against general tso's tofu as is usually contains oyster sauce in the sauce.

Chinese places around here seem kind of untrustworthy when I ask questions, like they'll answer way too quickly or obviously not write things down when I make a special request. Dishes are going to vary from place to place. I think it mostly comes down to asking about broth, fish/oyster sauce, and small pieces of meat in vegetable/tofu dishes.

None of the Chinese restaurants here are specifically vegetarian or vegan but tend to have a list of vegetarian dishes such as beancurd with different sauces (kung po, cashew nut, satay, etc) and has meat free side dishes too. My favourites are vegetable spring rolls and mock duck with pancakes.

We have a Chinese restaurant a few towns over that has vegan versions of nearly everything on the menu, made with seitan. It's pretty amazeballs but I'm not used to eating heavy, fried foods so I usually feel gross afterwards. The best thing you can do is ask about options. Steamed vegetables with rice and tofu is usually a safe bet.

It depends on the restaurants. There are chinese restaurants around here offering mock meat and then there are less friendly restaurants.

Things to be careful
1) Egg - When my husband and I were first vegans, we used to go to a vegan chinese restaurant. We decided to try a restaurant closer to our house, ordered same dish (it was on their vegetarian menu). I had never had the dish otherwise so I didn't think about it, but it came with egg.

2) Pork and tofu (this is apparently a common combo, so you'd want to specifically ask if any of the tofu dishes include meat)

3) Shrimp/oyster/whatever fish sauce - just ask

Overall, we've had fairly good experiences but we also live in a fairly vegetarian friendly area.

A joint near my place uses "chicken powder" in all but one dish. When you order eggrolls you have to ask if they have egg IN the roll, in the wrapper and if they use an egg wash to seal the wrap. Same for dumplings, I guess. P.F. Chang's has a lot of vegan options, but their sugar is supposedly filtered through bone char if that sort of thing bothers you. Another joint nearby has awesome deep fried orange tofu. Just tofu in a vegetarian sauce with a few carrots. Done.

Also, not exactly Chinese but try a Mongolian BBQ. You get to decide what goes into your stir fry so you know you're safe. And there's usually rice and wontons, too!

There are vegan egg roll wrappers? I thought egg roll wrappers always contained egg, hence the name egg roll.

There's two Chinese takeaways in my (very small) town. One has umpteen tofu and vegetable dishes, and they are generally happy to make things up for me off-menu as long as it's something sensible. The other has one vegetarian dish, which tasted like the Devil's own bumhole and ended up being thrown away after two mouthfuls.

There was a place we would go to down the street that was Chinese/Japanese with a veg menu in the back. We started finding chicken bits in our tofu so we stopped going.

Calling ahead is always an option. Also I find the language barrier is always a problem in communication for vegan safe food.

I dunno, I always ask and say "no fish sauce" and "no meat" but I'm usually skeptical. Most of time they just repeat what I say in a not very convincing way, but oh well. One memorable time the waiter said "no fish sauce" and laughed in a menacing way, which made me uneasy.

ETA: I think I once read somewhere that Szechuan dishes at US chinese places are usually vegan if they don't include meat, as the sauces are not made with fish. Anyone know if there's any truth to that?

One time years ago, I ordered a "tofu chicken" dish from a Chinese place, to go. For some weird reason I just assumed it gonna be "chicken-like" tofu, but when I got home it was tofu mixed with chicken. Totally dumb mistake on my part, in retrospect!

Ooh where is that? I don't eat out much but I'd like to try it.

I think that is generally true, considering they are traditionally from a landlocked area within China. We went to a traditional style Chinese restaurant with many szechuan dishes and very few of their dishes contained oyster sauce (according to them).

Genuine Chinese restaurants often have vegetarian options and are easy to veganize. A lot of Westernized Chinese restaurants bear little relation to actual Chinese food or practice, though. The more genuine it is, the easier it will be to get something vegan.

In China, you would look for a restaurant with the sù character (素) displayed; there are a lot of them. Tell them, "wǒ chī sù." That's close to, but not exactly, "I am vegetarian." Add "wǒ bù chī jīdàn" (I don't eat eggs), and you're pretty much all set. You might want to tell them you like garlic and onion, which are not considered sù.

Many Szechuan sauces are vegan. Even yuxiang which literally means "fish fragrance" is simply garlic, scallions, and ginger with doubanjiang (a paste made from spicy fermented beans and rice), soy sauce, and (often) chili peppers added.

Interesting about Szechuan sauces. There's a place near my work where you can get a stir-fry to go with whatever ingredients you choose. You get a choice of different rices/noodles, proteins and veggies, and several sauces. One of their sauces is just called "Szechuan sauce", and it's really good, but I was really curious what goes into it, so did some googling, and found a lot of recipes online that have chicken/beef broth as an ingredient. I realize these are probably Westernized versions (I mean, they're using "Szechuan sauce" as a generic when I assume there must be many sauces from the region) but the place is run by a Chinese family, so maybe it's fine. I haven't gotten up the nerve to ask at the place if there's actually broth in the sauce (it's not really common here to ask about ingredients) but maybe I should just bite the bullet and do it. I miss that sauce. (I've been ordering the curry sauce instead, assuming that's safe.)

It's called Red Star and it is in Dearborn! It's really good.

Pyewacket--you are awesome! I'm going to try that. Maybe it'll give them a laugh anyway.

Dumb question: what does Szechuan sauce mean? Like I get it's from that region, but which dishes are from that region. I usually get General Tso's tofu, but now I'm worried about oyster sauce. I did ask and say strict vegetarian, no fish no egg.

They have vegan meats at the restaurant I go to, but I totally forgot to ask about fish sauce. Do you think they could use stock in garlic/blackbean/brown sauce as well?

I've found the most alarming ingredients to be meat-based broths and oyster sauce. I think your odds are best if the restaurant has a Buddha's Delight, since that, in principle, should be strictly vegetarian (aka vegan).

Basically, if your sauce tastes like soy sauce, garlic and sugar, it's probably vegan!

There isn't really a standard Szechuan sauce; lots of different recipes go by that name. It's sort of a variation of guaiwei, with ginger, garlic, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame, peppercorns, chilis, sugar, rice wine ... or at least trying to mimic that flavor profile. One time I saw a jar of Szechuan sauce in the store that had oyster sauce in it. Whaaaat?!

I was surprised to find that, in Sichuan Province at least, some places will use beef tallow in their málà (literally: numbing hot) sauce. Good grief. I've bought jars of mala and never came across any with beef tallow in it. I've made it, seen others make it, gotten recipes from people, and I've never even heard of using beef tallow before. I guess you have to check every damn thing.

Chengdu is the culinary center of the region. Mapo doufu, dan dan noodles, Chengdu hot pot. Of course, there are dishes from that area like Kung Pao chicken, bang bang chicken, tea smoked duck, which are really good with substitutions. Buddhist vegetarian cuisine is all over the country, and each region has their own variations.

Wow, I love numbing hot sauce. I haven't had any in a while because there is only one restaurant I know near me that has it. My local vegan restaurant used to have one when they had dim sum but they stopped that. I had a lot of it too when I went to China but I wasn't vegan at the time.