Enjoy Vegetarian Restaurant

“Vegetarian meets Chinese cuisine”. 

This is the premise of Enjoy Vegetarian Restaurant, an entirely vegetarian restaurant with two locations in San Francisco (Chinatown, Sunset).  It is family owned and operated, and has won a number of awards in the vegetarian and vegan dining realm.

"From our menu, you will see dish names like Mongolian Beef, Kung Pao Chicken, Eggplant & Sea Bass. However, they are all made with soy products. We use the substitutions of soy products, yam and mushroom in many of our dishes. We also have a lot of dishes made with natural soy protein. We do our handmade Bean Curd Rolls, Soy Bean Sheet, Wheat Gluten, Golden Knoll and many more"

I remember visiting once or twice many, many years ago, with vegetarian friends, but don't remember much about it.  But I recently rediscovered it, during COVID-19 days, and the desire to get flavorful takeout, something different, and, well, living with a newfound vegan.  I'll admit that Chinese cuisine is never the top of my list, and I'm certainly not vegetarian (or vegan).

Lunch!

My first encounter however was quite positive.  The food was above average, hot and fresh, and my fellow dinner loved it too.  We quickly planned to order again.

Side note: Stuck doing a lot of takeout and delivery these days? Want to try some free food and new pickup or delivery services?  Here are some codes for free money!

• Door Dash ($15 off, $5 each of your first 3 orders) [ Delivery or pickup ]
• Caviar ($20 off, $10 off your first 2 orders) [ Delivery or pickup ]
• Ritual ($6 off) [ Pickup only ]
• Delivery.com ($10 off) [ Delivery or pickup ]
• Grub Hub ($10 off) [ Delivery or pickup ]

I ordered pickup via delivery.com, and that part of the experience was quite smooth - my order was ready right after I arrived, no issues acknowledging the order quickly, everything was nicely packaged, etc.  Enjoy Vegetarian is listed on (quite literally) every delivery service.

Setting

I visited the location closest to me, but they have a location in the Sunset as well.

Curb Appeal?

I visited the Kearny Street location, right on the edge of Chinatown, a block off Columbus.  Very easy to find, with a bright green sign.

The "Dining" Experience.

As my visit was during COVID-19, the restaurant was closed for dine-in, and operating as takeout only.

They had the most impressive setup of anywhere I visited during this time, with separate, clearly labelled, tables for each delivery service.  Entirely contactless.

It was amusing to see so many delivery services, they clearly are listed on ... all of them.

I intentionally arrived a bit early, to ensure hot fresh food, and, as I expected, it was literally just being finished off as I entered, the rice scooped into my container, condiments added, etc.  Quick and easy.

Bag of goodies.

They also scored points with me for the bag of goodies included, which they had pre-bagged, and threw in to every order: a fork (no spoon, no knife), chopsticks, napkins (2! thank you!), soy sauce, and hot sauce.  I didn't need to ask for these things, and, I would have.

Food

"With over 125 dishes to choose from, each visit to our Chinese restaurant can be a new experience!"

Yeah, they aren't messing around.  The menu is *extremely* expansive, with 15 appetizers, 8 soups, 7 "Chef's Special", 19 "House Special", 10 Tofu and Bean Curd based dishes, 10 "Spicy", 7 Chow Mein, 5 Noodle Soup, 7 Rice ... and an additional 46 item menu for lunch.  Seriously.

And yes, everything is vegetarian.  Almost all is vegan (it is noted when not, e.g. dishes like Walnut Prawns w/ Mayonnaise Sauce), and anything gluten-free (or gluten-free option) is designated with ***s.

Lunch Specials 特價精選 

My visit was for lunch, to try a special, served Monday – Friday 11am – 2:00pm (except holidays).  Lunch specials are served with Spring Roll & Steamed Rice or Brown Rice, unlike the main menu (also available at lunch) that is a large portion but no rice, no appetizer, and higher price.

Specials are $11.99 from the restaurant directly, marked up to $13.50 through delivery.com ($12.99 on DoorDash, and regular $11.99 price on Caviar.  Boo hiss, I picked wrong!).

The lunch special lineup is 46 dishes, all numbered for easy ordering, a selection of rice, chow mein, noodle soup, spicy, and standard dishes from the full menu.

Appetizer: Fried Spring Roll (part of lunch special).

The first thing I pulled from my bag was the spring roll, packaged in a paper bag.  It was visibly quite greasy, but strangely, it didn't seem much oil came off on the paper towel I set it on.  

It did taste more of oil/grease than I'd like, but it wasn't a stale or bad oil taste, just, well, a lot of oil.  It was hot (kudos), crisp (double kudos!), and filled with shredded veggies.

Nothing particularly remarkable about it, it was a standard fried vegetarian Chinese spring roll, but I appreciated that it was not soggy.  I planned to use the provided soy sauce/hot sauce, but my main dish was so saucy, I ended up just dunking it in there, to avoid needing to open a soy sauce packet and figure out how to drizzle/dunk without a container.

Spring rolls are also available as a regular appetizer, 3 to an order, for $3.99.  I wouldn't order them intentionally, but I appreciated having an included appetizer with lunch.

L28: Braised Spareribs w/ Daikon & Cooked Lettuce 蘿蔔素腩. Brown Rice. $13.50.

When I opened my container, I'll admit I was a bit disappointed.  It looked like a ton of brown rice, and really not much of the main dish.  Which, granted, is common for lunch specials rather than a la carte.  But it turned out looks were deceiving - that entire side was not just rice, it was actually filled with the main dish under the rice too, the rice was just packed in on top.  

I selected brown rice at the request of my co-dinner, as I'm not really one for rice in general, and I expected most of it to go to him.  I did end up eating some, as the saucy nature of the dish required it, and it was really good rice, at least, to me.  Again, not a rice girl, but I liked the texture (slightly crunchy), the flavor (slightly nutty), and it certainly wasn't clumpy or mushy.

As for the main dish, I selected it because I read good things about the vegan spare ribs, and the option of daikon and lettuce sounded far more exciting than the other choice, broccoli.  I like cooked lettuce in general (I love to grill it too!), and had been on a daikon kick at the time.

The daikon ended up being kinda meh to me - it was fine, juicy, and soaked up lots of sauce, but, for some reason, I just wasn't into it.  There was plenty of it.  The dish also included a few chunks of carrot (major meh, I'm not a cooked carrot girl, basically just braised carrots like in a stew).

It was very, very saucy overall, in a sauce that was fairly sweet, thick, and had some, uh, "Chinese flavor" to it.  I found it a bit too one note, but I added plenty of the provided Chinese hot sauce, and it was good that way.  I wouldn't want this sauce again though.

On the a la carte menu, this dish is a "House Special", for $13.99 (or $15.50 with delivery.com), the broccoli version is a "Chef's Special" for $14.99/$16.50, for lunch it was "L28", $11.99/$13.50.  The portion was good, and included the appetizer, but the delivery.com markup did make it feel overpriced.

Lettuce.

It didn't look initially like there was much lettuce included, but again, looks were deceiving.  Once I dug in, I found the entire base of the container, both sides, under the rice as well, was covered in the cooked lettuce.  It was absolutely drenched in the sauce, so very very very sweet, but again, I added hot sauce (and some fried shallots I brought), and enjoyed it.  It needed some rice to balance the sauce though, hence, my unplanned rice eating.

Mushroom!

As I dug around, I found ... mushrooms!  There were only a few (I think 4?), and all were hiding under the rice, but they were my favorite part: meaty mushrooms, with a nice chew to them.

Veggie Spare Ribs.

And finally, of course, the main attraction: the spare ribs.  Vegan.  This was the part I was most ... interested in of course.  I am not vegan, I am not vegetarian, and I enjoy meat and seafood and duck ... yeah, all the things (except chicken!).  But people really do find the vegetarian proteins at Enjoy compelling, and in particular, I heard great things about the spare ribs.

Now, I ... really dislike tofu (especially firm tofu), I *loathe* tempeh, but, these I believe were made from seitan.  Unlike tofu and tempeh (made from soy), seitan is derived from wheat gluten.  It has more chew to it, more meatiness.  I am not positive this was seitan though (it might have been mushroom based? Who knows, really?).

Anyway.  It was ... actually kinda good.  Definitely fascinating, and not an immediate 'no way!'.  It was chewy, it was meaty, it was ... a bit spongy.  The taste was hard to distinguish given all the sauce, but, it wasn't bad.  Basically, just quite interesting, not unpleasant, and, well, fun to try.  I certainly could have believed it was some form of highly processed meat, but it was more like a meatball than a spare rib.  

I was glad to try this, but I want to try other proteins next.

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