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Dalian, China

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Tian Yuan Vegetarian Restaurant Hot

Restaurants Vegetarian

Written by connie

Saturday, 05 May 2007

User rating

6.8

out of 10

2 User reviews

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Location

Name (Chinese): 田园素食店
Address (Chinese): 唐山街松山寺旁
Address (Pinyin): Tangshan Jie
District: Xigang
Directions: 20 meters west of Songshan Temple, on Tangshan Jie (near downtown)
Telephone Number: 8367-3110, 8203-2519

Simple, inexpensive vegetarian restaurant near Songshan Temple

User reviews

Average user rating from: 2 user(s)


Overall rating		6.8
Food		7.5
Ambience		4.0
Service		7.5
Cost		8.0

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

A Decent Change, Monday, 06 August 2007

Written by Heiney - View all my reviews - Top 100 Reviewer

I went to Tian Yuan this past Sunday (5 August) with two friends.

The directions were good and the taxi driver was able to find the place without any problem. However, we called first just to confirm the location.

I like the little hole-in-the-wall places and am used to eating at them. True to the previous comment, there were very few tables. I think I counted six or seven, but one was being used for a tea setting. Ambiance? Definitely not a place you'd want to take your first date or have a business meeting.

We three were the only people in the place with the exception of the two kind ladies working there.

I'm not currently vegetarian, but when I was younger I was. In fact, for a while I was even strictly vegan. I'm used to TVP (textured vegetable protein) that's used as a replacement for meat. I've only been to vegetarian restaurants three previous times in the four and a half years I've been in China. It always makes a good change from the dishes always loaded with meat. How many times have I been told that a vegetable dish REALLY IS only vegetables then find out when it's delivered that it does in fact contain meat??

So, we ordered three dishes. The first, sorry I can't remember the name, was 'chicken' with cabbage and mushrooms. The second was a style of pai gu (ribs) with carrots. The third, my favorite, was simply a stir-fried cabbage that tasted like it contained just a hint of wasabi.

One of my friends and I each ordered a beer. We soon discovered the only beer served at the restaurant is non-alcoholic beer. Not a big deal, but something the booze hounds amongst us should be aware of. However, I suppose this isn't really the kind of place most big drinkers would be going to anyway. ;)

The two ladies were friendly and offered a few suggestions about what we may like.

Food has to be pretty darn good to make me want to "stand up and slap my momma." So, I only gave the food a 6. The food at Tian Yuan was average when compared to the other "canteen" style neighborhood restaurants. As most canteen food tends to be heavy on the salt and oil it's something that tends to wear thin after a while. Tian Yuan was very light on the oil, but pretty much par for the course with the salt and MSG. I forgot to ask for no MSG. It's nothing I'm afraid of, it's just that food seems to have a bit of a "metallic" taste when a lot of weijing is used.

The prices were average. Three dishes, two small bowls of rice, two beers, and a Sprite came to 55kuai.

Because I live in Kai Fa Qu, getting into town takes a while. This isn't a place I'm going to be making weekly trips to. It's not THAT good. But, will I go back? Sure, if I'm in the area.

It's good average canteen food without the meat. Definitely good for something different.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

Something of a revelation, Wednesday, 09 May 2007

Written by mrtoga - View all my reviews - Top 50 Reviewer

First of all, I am not a vegetarian but do have veggie friends, so I thought I would check out this restaurant. Next to the temple up the hill from Hope Square, it is a tiny place and unless you can read Chinese (天缘素饭店） you may struggle to locate it.

Anyway I went in and sat down at one of only about four tables in the restaurant (not a place for a big party). Reading on here that it was a vegetarian restaurant, I was a little disappointed to read the menu (Chinese only) and see meat, meat, meat. Had I been deceived? Still, since I was there and had been provided with a hot water I felt obliged to order something. Yuxiang Rousi, shuizhu Roupian etc. etc. Standard fare that you can get in any Chinese canteen and not remotely vegetarian. I resigned myself to a hundun (wonton) at just 5RMB and wrote off the restaurant as a bit of a hoax. Vegetarian my arse.

Anyway, the hundun turned out to be the most delicious I have ever tasted! It was in a nice soup with carrots, mushrooms, xiangcai and strips of tofu. The dumplings were excellent, but I could not quite put my finger on what was in it. Seemed meaty, and yet not quite.

Anyway I finished my meal and complemented the cook on a very tasty and reasonably priced meal, mentioning that I had heard that this was a vegetarian restaurant but was glad I had came anyway.

"We are a vegetarian restaurant!", came the reply

"But your menu is full of food that contains meat" countered I, pointing to a whole list of dishes on the menu containing the "rou" character.

"Ah, they do not contain meat, the meat is substituted for bean curd. Everything is vegetarian. The names of the dishes are just to explain what they would be had we used meat".

"You mean to say that delicious hundun had no meat in it?" I asked, quite gobsmacked.

"Bean curd."

So, there you go. A vegetarian restaurant from the sign outside, a misleading menu full of meat, but a happy ending to this review. If the rest of the menu lives up to the hundun I imagine they will make a lot of laowai veggies living in Dalian very happy indeed. I told her to expect a steady flow of foreigners after I wrote this review.

I only mark the restaurant down on ambience, which is not really fair as it does not attempt to be fancy. The prices were very reasonable with nothing more than 30RMB on the menu that I could see. Here are the details in Chinese if you need to find it:

唐山街松山寺1-1-4
天缘素饭店
83673110
贾女士（Ms. Jia）

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