Bok Choy Garden received a great review

[Guest guest]

thanks Bernice, the cow collector for the article

 

http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf_eats/default.jsp?story=0611PICKY

It's the next best thing

BY THE PICKY EATER

Special to The Examiner

You don’t have to be a monk or a Simpson to be vegetarian. One of my

favorite episodes of “The Simpsons” is when Lisa Simpson, the precocious and

politically correct daughter, realizes she wants to live her life as a

vegetarian. She has her first taste of what she finds out is a tofu hot dog at

the Kwik-E Mart:

Lisa: The whole world wants me to eat meat. I can’t fight it anymore. There!

Is everybody happy now?

Apu: I take it from your yelling that you like my tofu dogs?

Lisa: Tofu?

Apu: Oh yes. No meat whatsoever.

I can’t close my eyes and go to Springfield to sample some of this delicious

imitation meat, but after some exploring, I discovered that you don’t have to

venture too far to nosh on some vegetarian goodies. There are many restaurants

in The City that serve American, Latin, African, and Asian vegetarian cuisines.

I was on the hunt, though, for Chinese vegetarian restaurants in San

Francisco that specialized in Buddhist monastery dishes. The first time I had

food like this was at Wenshu Yuan, a Tang dynasty Buddhist monastery in Chengdu,

Sichuan, in south-central China. I ate sweet and sour fish made from mashed

potato and konnyaku yams wrapped in bean curd skin; tangy bean curd spareribs,

which were fibrous and colored pink like pork and speared with a stalk of bamboo

to mimic the bone; and a shrimp and chicken celery dish created from tofu and

Sichuan mountain ice fungus. It was one of the best meals I had in China, and

after lunch, I had an opportunity to sit down with the monk who prepared my meal

to learn more about this culinary art.

Fo zhai cai is the practice of transforming vegetarian ingredients — gluten,

soy, agar, plants — so they resemble meat or fish in their appearance, taste and

texture. The monk told me that it was important the dishes mirror their meat

counterparts without using pungent garlic and scallions or heavy spices and

sauces — flavors that are not to be used in monastery cooking.

With memories of Chengdu, my search led me to Bok Choy Garden on Clement and

19th Ave. in the Richmond. It’s not a monastery, and the only things it had in

common with Wenshu Yuan were the fog and mist.

I first ate at Bok Choy last November. Before I even had time to comment on

the 12-armed bronzed Buddha goddess hitched above the kitchen entrance, my

friend shoved a chopstick full of what appeared to be peppered beef into my

mouth.

Chewy, striated, tasty. But what was it? Soy. The chef at Bok Choy informed

me that everything in front of us was made from soy, and no meat products or

meat by-products were used. I was so impressed with the meat knockoffs that I

decided to bring some of my friends to venture out of the animal kingdom and

forage in a vegetable garden of eats.

There are only six tables and three booths in the dining room, and a small

private room off to the right that can accommodate larger parties. This time, we

sat in one of the green booths. The booths are well worn and cracked, but they

add a well frequented, diner-feeling to the restaurant.

We ordered a cup of sweet corn soup ($1.75) and a bowl of shredded black and

enoki mushrooms and vermicelli soup ($5.75) to start off our meal. There wasn’t

a lot of corn in the soup. What corn there was wasn’t sweet and didn’t flavor

the broth, which was a bit too salty. I would also have liked the kernels to be

whole instead of crushed.

The strings of enoki mushrooms squished around in my mouth and made a sound

like rubber galoshes in the rain when I chewed on them. The black mushrooms,

however, were sour, a sign that they’ve been soaking in water too long and have

begun to ferment.

Still we were excited to try the main dishes. Mongolian beef in spicy sauce

($8.25) is not on the menu, instead it is written on one of the dry erase boards

under “Specials of the Week.” (Don’t worry if you can’t make it to the

restaurant this week, this dish has been a “special” for the past 20 weeks.)

Tender pieces of bean curd are shaped and prepared to resemble slices of flank

steak, and stir-fried with red and green bell peppers and fried cubes of firm

tofu, all resting on leaves of boiled cabbage. My curiosity drove me to suck the

sauce off the soy slices to see what was underneath the spicy, brown coating.

Stripped of its glaze, I noticed that the rubbery slices of fermented bean curd

were gently fried to create a skin, which had little black dots on them. I think

the dots are supposed to resemble black pepper.

It’s hard to imagine that what you’re eating is not beef, because it tastes

like it and it looks like it. It’s even more expensive than an average beef dish

at a Chinese restaurant. Another house specialty, vegetarian chicken in

curry sauce ($6.50), came with crisp broccoli florets, cubes of red and green

bell peppers and deep-fried morsels of breaded faux chicken. This dish was a bit

heavy, only because of the fried soy chunks, which were rolled and formed to

look like pieces of chicken. I wonder if the dish could have been prepared

without having to flour and fry the soy mini-nuggets to save some calories.

The curry sauce was good, not too oily. But the oil from the soy nuggets

leaked onto the sauce, creating little oil swirls in the mustard-yellow sauce.

The vegetarian chicken had a chewy texture to it, and reminded me of chicken

nuggets at the school cafeteria or the ones from the frozen-food section. Our

last dish, stir-fried eggplants with basil in barbeque sauce ($6.50), had a

wonderful aroma to it and came with slightly charred diagonal slices of Japanese

eggplant, basil and green chilies cooked to a buttery creaminess. But watch out

— this dish is drenched in oil. In Chinese restaurants, most of the eggplant

dishes are cooked with plenty of pork lard and peanut oil, but at Bok Choy of

course only the latter is used. The eggplants went well with a nutty, steamed

brown rice ($1.00), which was cooked to a tender perfection.

If you’re looking for a meat alternative or just want to expand your

culinary experience, try Bok Choy. After the novelty of not eating meat wears

off, if you are omnivorous you may want to stick with real meat dishes, since

they may be healthier.

Be prepared for some dishes that are higher in fat, sugar and salt than

dishes prepared with meat and seafood, since these extras are added to imitate

and create flavors. But Bok Choy does offer an array of dishes that aren’t

breaded and deep-fried, so don’t be too afraid to try it at least once.

A regular feature in AsianWeek, The Picky Eater rates Bay Area Asian

restaurants and is always on the lookout for that hidden hole-in-the-wall or

up-and-coming fusion eatery. Reach The Picky Eater at asianweek.

 

 

 

 

 

signature: FAQ on vegetarian resources

 

http://www.bayareaveg.org

http://www.vegdining.com

http://www.sfvs.org

Living Foods: SFLivingFoods/

due to my high amount of emails, I am unable to answer everyone's emails on

vegetarian questions.

 

 

 

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