A couple of weeks ago my Mom and I had separate dinner plans changed at the last minute, so we decided to try the vegetarian restaurant Vegelink across the street from my apartment. My mom went there for dim sum lunch and really enjoyed it, so we decided to see how it would be like for dinner. Unfortunately for us, but good for future reference, we were told that the restaurant is actually a private kitchen. For dinner, reservations must be made, only a tasting menu is served, and there are set start times of 7:00pm or 8:00pm. As a result, even though there were still tables empty, they were not able to serve us. Even though we couldn't eat there that night, we decided we really wanted to go back to try their tasting menu. It was very reasonably priced at $160 pp, so made a reservation to try its tasting menu dinner.
As the the restaurant is located on the first floor (or second floor in Canada), its street-level entrance is shared with a kindergarten, but there's a sign outside that clearly points to it. Once you walk up the stairs, voila the restaurant entrance.
The interior clean, modern and very zen. Most importantly, because of its intimate size, it was also very cozy. It made for a very good atmosphere for dining with family and friends.
We were served a barley tea. It tastes like the type I used to buy in Korean supermarkets in Toronto. It is a nice change from the usual black or green tea. The tea is not heavy and was a good company to the food.
The menu of the day. Ten courses + desserts. $160HKD. Seriously a bargain!
The first course was a quartet of four items. This included "fish balls" (I use the quotation marks to highlight that given this is a vegetarian restaurant, all the meat are imitation). The taste was quite good!
The second part of the quartet was a potato and apple salad. Unfortunately, given my allergy to raw apples, I could not try this. Otherwise, I would have loved to try the potatoes.
The third part of the quartet was marinated shredded tofu/mushrooms. I really liked this. Opened the appetite.
This was interesting. It's cherry tomatoes dipped/marinated with a sweet sauce. As a result, it was sweet and sour at the same time. I am not sure I loved the flavour, but I thought it was interesting.
The first dish was a "shark fin dumpling". The shark fin was quite yummy. You really can't tell it's not real shark fin. I really enjoyed the dish, in part because I really liked its delicate presentation. I should also comment here that the service was impeccable!
Pumpkin soup with dried scallops. It was lighter than the regular creamy pumpkin soup, which I gather is because it was not made with the usual cream. The flavours were western and asian at the same time. I really liked this soup and the "dried scallops" added a really great texture!
Braised scallops. Using the stems of large mushrooms, they created faux scallops. I think I actually like these scallops more than real ones! They were very tender and full of flavour.
Spinach with mushrooms and fried noodles. I am not sure what those fried noodles are made out of. I wish I knew so that I can replicate it! They were very crispy which is a good contrast to the softness of the veggies.
Tofu skewers! The tofu that is dark brown in colour was made to imitate beef and you know, they marinated it so well that it actually tasted very meat-like!
Oh dear, I am not sure my description can do this dish justice because the manage of the restaurant seemed really proud of it, coming to our table and explaining it to us in person. It is stacked chinese cabbage with filling of carrots and some special ingredient flown in from Japan. (I didn't fully understand what he was saying!) The stack is then cooked with a special mushroom sauce. The sauce was really delicious. Luckily I took his advice to pour more sauce on my plate!
A curry with beef balls. I liked this dish, but I wasn't in love with it. Maybe it's because I don't like curry as soup, but that is how we were expected to eat it.
Fried sticky rice. It wasn't very strong in flavour, BUT, I think I actually liked it that way. I would describe the flavour as gentle such that the dish as a whole was comforting. I also really liked the texture of the rice. Usually I dread the rice at the end of a big Chinese meal, but this was good.
A salty-sweet dumpling stuffed with veggies and meat. It's hard to describe...it's a traditional dim sum! I am usually not a fan of the real meat version (don't like the salty-sweet) and I still don't love it, but I appreciated this version because it wasn't oily and it was a well-made dish.
Yum, dessert. A beans cake and grounded-walnut porridge. I have had the chance to sample a lot of new asian desserts recently and I am really appreciating that there are a lot of varieties out there! It's an area of eating I am definitely keen to explore more.
To summarize, I really enjoyed the restaurant and given that its menu changes every week, it is a place I would like to try again. The manager said that they are able to design menus for any price that you want to offer. While the only standard one right now is $160 pp, they want to experiment with new "set" menus at prices like $280, $380, etc. I was really happy with the $160 and am super curious to see what $280 may be like. Seriously, given the restaurant really is across the street from my apartment, I really don't have an excuse to not come back!
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