I mentioned a couple posts ago that I went to this awesome vegetarian Chinese restaurant that is not Happy Family. I managed to eat my way through everything without a single picture. I ahd to go back again to get the some pictures.

The Hubs and I are eating vegetarian about 3-4 days per month for religious reasons. Our vegetarianism restricts us from food with garlic, any type of onions, peppers and alcohol. So during the veggie days, we couldn’t just go to our favorite restaurants and order dishes without meat. Because chances are, those dishes will mostly likely at  least one of the forbidden ingredients.

This has prompted us to venture out and find vegetarian restaurants that follow these guidelines. My mom suggested this new place in the Focus Plaza in San Gabriel called Gourmet Vegetarian. This is one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants so far because the food taste like…well real food! And we don’t have to ask the waiter/waitress the ingredient of every dish because they are Buddist vegetarian friendly. They do not season their food with garlic or onions.

In my experience, Chinese vegetarian food tend to taste the same. It’s always chewy with some sort of skewed version of kung-pao tasting sauce slathered all over the said chewiness. But Gourmet Vegetarian restaurant has a refreshing take of Chinese vegetarian foods well as a good selection of Japanese dishes such as hand rolls and California rolls. The Chinese dishes are very much Taiwanese influeced and the taste is pretty close to their meatier counterparts.

One of the must orders on the menu is their hand rolls. They used lettuce, dried bean curd and pickled daikon (turnip).

vegetarian hand rolls

close up of vegetarian hand rolls

Next up is the fried “chicken” strips or nuggets. For those of you that read Chinese, it’s their vegetarian version of 咸酥雞, translated literally, it’s saled crispy chicken with basil leaves. This dish is made with gluten and fried in a light batter, sprinkled with some MSG salt.

"fried chicken nuggets"

My mom is a fan of their sesame pancake but I’m just meh about it. It’s just fried dough with a sprinkle of white sesame seeds. I rather waste my calories on another dish.

sesame pancakes

I think the best dish on their menu is the sesame-oil-wine chicken thin rice noodle. In Chinese: 麻油鷄麪綫. It actually taste like the real thing!  Gluten is used again for the chicken chunks but they got the ginger and the sesame oil essence of the dish down. Of course, there is no rice wine in it or it would not be vegetarian in Buddhist beliefs.

sesame-oil-wine-chicken noodle soup thingamageeg

close up

As I mentioned, the menu has quite a few Japanese inspired dishes. This  was one of them. Stir fried vegetarian udon.  It was a little over peppered and a tad on the greasy side. But overall, it’s a good dish for people who are a little apprehensive to try the before mentioned items and great for kids because it’s really just a normal dish you can get at a Hong Kong style cafe.

stir fried vegetarian udon on hot plate

he restaurant also offers many puff pastry selections. The one that caught my eye was the puff pastry almond soup which is more like dessert. However, I was stuffed that day and didn’t order it. My mom did order the puff pastry pumpkin bisque which is a savory dish.

puff pastry pumpkin bisque

Of course, what’s a vegetarian meal without vegables! Here is their take on the Taiwanese style of pairing vegetables with minced meat (meat made with mushrooms).

An Choy with minced "meat"

Gourmet Vegetarian is not your ordinary Chinese vegetarian restaurant. The restauarant is spacious, has nice decor and is clean. The price is not cheap though. A dinner for 4 will run you about $100, high in San Gabriel/Monterey Park/Alhambra vicinity. However, it’s definitely worth a trip.

(626) 280-

Back in the day, Tea Station use to be just a little tea store that sold packaged teas, loose leaf teas, ice tea, hot tea and various flavored boba. It use to be a place where one can pop in and pop out and get a drink to go. For you young’uns out there…once upon a time, their boba was $2.50 and buy one get one free! GASP! Yes, it’s not just a myth….it’s true!

However, over the years, Tea Station has turned into this boba conglomerate. The turned the stores into this big hang out place complete with Taiwanese tabloid  magazines, Chinese checkers and chess, cards for the patrons to play with. The one in San Gabriel near the Focus Plaza now has 20 something tables. Their menu has more than just dried squid and giant toast. There are full on meals like tea infused pork chop rice and curry chicken dishes.  Tea Station is now a destination, not just a stop over. People will stay there for hours on end, playing cards or reading magazines. I don’t understand why they can’t just do these things at home.

Men hanging out

Playing cards..why don't they just do this at home?! I don't get it.

Along with Tea Station’s  “improvements”, the prices has skyrocketed! I believe the boba is now something like $3.50-$3.75 a cup and the tea is $6 a pot!  And this was not the most expensive on the menu! This is the Hubs’ drink of choice at Tea Station. He loves it. It just taste like sugar water to me. Not even a whiff of tea anywhere.

Hubs' beloved mixed fruit tea

My mind was probably high from the euphoria that is Hama Sushi or I’m just weakling amongst peer pressure but I also ordered a pot of tea. Mine was infused with starfruit that was suppose to sooth my pulmonary system or something. (It said so on the menu so it must be true.) I wanted to kick myself for getting it. It tasted like they just melted a couple of Ricolas in hot water, put it in a fancy glass tea jar and charge you 6 DOLLARS! OK, that might not sound like alot to some of people. But around this neighborhood, you can get 2 meals for that price. So yes, it’s relatively pricey.

My Ricola tasting tea...blegh

The Sis decided to be adventureous and order a  hot barley milk tea with boba instead of a regular iced milk tea with boba. I had sip of it and it had a nutty flavor. Okay, I’ll admit it, the boba is pretty Q (FOB TALK!). In other words, nice an chewy to the core. So this drink was actually okay. Just a tad too sweet for my taste.

Frog eyes and hay sticks...just kdding. Just barley hot milk tea with boba

The San Gabriel population doesn’t seem to share my distaste for Tea Station because the place was packed when we left. Here their addy anways if you ever find yourself craving for some expensive Ricola flavored water.