Lotus Garden Vegetarian Restaurant

the waiter there is very friendly and attentive. i'm not sure if he is the only server they have, but he has been the server all 5 times i've gone there. that's definitely not a bad thing, since he's really good.

the food is pretty standard chinese vegan. lots of fake meats (beefs, chicken, pork). lots of tofu dishes. i like things with beancurd. they will sub beancurd in any dish for something like 50 cents.

there portions are pretty big. two people can easily share one dish.

I admit it, I haven't been to this restaurant. I don't have a particular grudge against vegetarians, the food may even taste good. However, I will never try this restaurant. I am a lifelong Chinese food lover. My wife is Chinese, I have been to China a few times, and if you ask anyone Chinese that I know, the idea of a strictly vegetarian or vegan  Chinese restaurant is funny, as in strange and dissonant. Chinese people eat everything that moves, be it in the water, sky, or on land. They also eat just about every part of everything that moves, no joke. I know this because I have "tried" just about every part from everything that moves. Taking the meat out of Chinese cuisine is like taking the culture out of the food, it is integral. I am sure there are many will disagree, but this just isn't right. You want to take away authenticity, take away the main ingredient, that will do it.

I recently visited Lotus Garden for the first time in a while and found it much the same as on past visits, which is both good and bad as other reviewers have already said.

The various fake meat offerings are collectively a hit-or-miss proposition.  The menu describes the brown slices as "veggie beef," a label which is oxymoronic and unsatisfying as it sounds no matter what dish incorporates it, and whose corresponding product predictably resembles neither veggie nor beef.  On the other hand, the vegan pot stickers are tasty enough that I don't miss the meat normally found in pot stickers, and are arguably better than traditional pork ones in part because they're made on the premises rather than taken out of a bag as at most Chinese restaurants.

All the tofu-based and non-protein offerings strike me as pretty good, though.  The curry tofu is a favorite and I enjoy both the flavor and texture of the mu shu tofu, which is of course a much lighter dish than the usual mu shu pork.  Maybe I'm just a fan of anything containing fried cabbage, but I like this enough to leave the rice wrappers and hoisin sauce behind and just eat it on its own, or maybe with some rice.

Speaking of which, the special fried rice is another item that contains fake meat but is pretty decent.  Overall, Lotus Garden deserves 3.5 stars, thanks to the food the Hong brothers whip up in the kitchen, but the lousy hours and routinely indifferent service call for rounding down, not up.