Healthy, Tasty, Vegetarian

If you're unfamiliar with Chinese-style vegetarian food, you may be in for quite a shock when you see the menu at Xu Xiang Zhai Restaurant and even more of a shock when you see how the food is served.

It's a pleasant, flowers-from-a-stranger kind of shock, and once you're used to the concept, you'll wonder why you haven't been exposed to this fascinating culinary niche before.

First, the restaurant offers a vegetarian buffet, except the rich a la carte menu, which looks exactly as it would in any Chinese restaurant. Xu Xiang Zhai is a franchise store of Shenzhen-based Deng Pin Su Group, a top brand in the vegetarian food industry, which imported the group's unique service form, the vegetarian buffet. The buffet, like its non-vegetarian counterparts, is composed of more than 100 types of dishes, including cold dishes, hot dishes, soups, staple foods, fruit, soft drinks and ice-cream. In addition, diners can also find Japanese- and Korean-styled dishes, such as sushi and even sashimi. The buffet lunch is 48 yuan per diner, dinner 58 yuan, prices lower than other reputable vegetarian restaurants in Beijing. People over 70 and children under 1.1-metres tall can get 50 percent discount.

Second, you won't find any of the plain ingredient-list type dish titles that you may find at home. No "gluten pan-fried with brown sauce" here. Instead, you'll see "bird's nest," spicy "chicken" cubes and water-boiled "fish" (shuizhu yu). And when it comes to the table, the food looks, tastes, and smells exactly like an original regional Chinese dish! When you overcome your disbelief enough to take a bite, the exceptionally clear flavours and masterful palette of tastes will, as it does every night to dozens of customers, convert you from sceptic to believer in a few mouthfuls.

It's quite a trick the chef manages, to fill a menu with dozens of "standard" dishes and not use animal products. Vegetarian dishes are made without Chinese onions, garlic or leeks. Liquor is not allowed.

Third, the restaurant gives its staff Chinese culture and traditional Chinese medicine lectures in an attempt to prepare them to handle customer inquiries. They can clearly state to those who are non-vegetarians how vegetarian dishes are packed with rich, nutritious contents and fulfil many health functions. An interpreter is employed to serve English-speaking diners.

Pleasing everyone is a goal of this pleasant little restaurant -- three minutes walk along a pleasant, tree-lined hutong lane from the Lama Temple subway station (Yonghegong). The décor is fresh and clean, and the service excellent. But it's the great food at excellent prices you'll come back for, amazing dishes that disprove the old saw about things that look like ducks and quack like ducks…you never know, at Xu Xiang Zhai, it's not fish at all, but rather exquisitely prepared shavings of two types of tofu that melt in the mouth just like duck!

Try the only buffet vegetarian restaurant in Beijing, because it is a good venue to have a taste of many vegetarian dishes in one sitting at a good price.

Open: 11 a.m.-2 p.m., 5:30 p.m.-9 p.m.

Tel: +86 10 6404 6568

Address: A 26-1 Guozijian Dajie, opposite the Confucius Temple

叙香斋素食馆，国子监街孔庙对面

Apéritif à la francaise

The best-known French tradition in the world did some globetrotting on June 2. After its first edition on June 3, 2004, in 13 countries, this year's Apéritif à la francaise, with the support of a number of partner companies, delighted food lovers in 31 cities in 21 countries. The selected cities showed off different facets of French agro-foods products and Beijing was one of them.

The Beijing event themed "an Aperitif among friends" and took place at the Ming Dynasty city wall at Dongbianmen. Some 400 guests clinked glasses in honour of friendship and enjoyed entertainment such as a lucky draw and fashion show.

French food and beverages, especially the aperitif, were showcased during special events at the city's Carrefour stores and trendy restaurants, such as the Cuisine Galley at Novotel Xinqiao.