House of Vege
By Richard Foss
Note: Written 2003, no changes after several repeat visits.
“It is meat and drink to me to see a clown,” says one of Shakespeare’s wise fools. The metaphor of meat as the indispensable minimum for a meal, for life itself, is so pervasive that it’s easy to forget that for most of history most people have lived on a largely vegetarian diet. It is still harder to remember that some cultures, notably the Chinese, have developed vegetarian cuisines that are so rich in choices that the meat is not even missed.
Though there are many Chinese restaurants specializing in vegetarian cuisine in the greater Los Angeles area, most are in the large Chinese communities in Monterey Park and Alhambra. One of the rare exceptions is here in the South Bay, a quiet and upscale restaurant called House Of Vege.
At first glance it doesn’t look different from any other local Asian restaurant, a place decorated in traditional colors with a giant Chinese character on the wall. The menu has sections listed Shrimp, Fish, Chicken, and Pork, and old favorites like shark fin soup and Kung Pao chicken are present. What isn’t immediately obvious is that the giant Chinese character on the wall is the ideogram for “Vegetarian,” and the items that appear to be made of meat are actually clever combinations of vegetables textured to simulate the look, feel, and taste of various animal-based foods. The art was developed by generations of Chinese Buddhists who combined a reverence for life with a taste for traditional food, and over the years they developed a surprising range of effects. As we discovered, while some work better than others, all the ones we had were interesting. We decided to give the restaurant a hard test by bringing with us our friend’s daughter Teri, who likes Chinese food but is generally suspicious of unknown vegetables and leaves them untouched.
We started out our dinner with starters of vegetarian eggrolls and Taiwanese-style “chicken” rolls. Though the eggrolls were good the chicken rolls were better; had I been served these at any other Chinese restaurant I would have sworn that they were made with chicken and shrimp, and unusually well made at that. They were firm and had the slight grain of meat, though if you were really thinking about it you could detect a bit of the texture of chopped water chestnuts in there somewhere. Both rolls met the Teri test nicely, having plenty of crunch and texture and looking nothing like green things that your mom makes you eat.
We also had minced “squab” in lettuce, one of my favorite tests of a Chinese restaurant because squab is one of those meats that goes from underdone to dry in mere seconds. The vegetarian version wasn’t entirely convincing as squab but was entirely rewarding anyway. If I had been given a lettuce cup of this mixture without knowing what it had been called I might have said that it was somewhat like squab in lettuce cups but lighter, milder, and with a bit more crunch.
We continued with bowls of hot and sour soup and shark’s fin soup, and tried a little of each. The hot and sour was medium hot rather something to melt fillings, and had a nice body and balance of vinegar, scallions, and spice. The shark fin soup caused real cognitive dissonance – I was looking at my spoon, telling myself that those aren’t shrimp in there, I’m in a vegetarian restaurant so they can’t be shrimp and that’s not shark fin even though it looks like it… Oddly enough, my first thought on tasting it was the urge to phone some of my kosher Jewish friends who had never tasted shellfish and invite them over, because this is as close as they’ll get. The shark’s fin soup didn’t quite have the same flavor as the real thing, but it was good on its own merits.
We moved to the entrees with the house crispy “chicken,” eggplant with basil, stuffed bean curd skins with brown sauce, and a cup of brown rice. The crispy chicken was delightful and was made of mushrooms in a crisp batter, tossed with a slightly spicy sauce and spring onions. Lightly cooked mushrooms have a meat like texture, and these filled in for the chicken very nicely. The sauce was thick enough to sit on the batter without softening it, lending a complex flavor and extra layer of texture to a classic item.
We continued with a novelty – a vegetable in this vegetarian restaurant that actually looked like a vegetable. The one in question was eggplant fried with chilies and Thai basil, and it was delicious, light and tangy. The smoky flavor of eggplant, sharp heat of peppers, and herbal lilt of basil worked perfectly together. We also have stir-fried spinach topped with bean curd skins stuffed with vegetables, which was good in a more low-key way. Everything worked well, the spinach expertly done and the bean curd crafted with a texture like al dente pasta. After the fireworks of the previous few items, it was a quiet interlude, and we returned to it between bites of other items.
Even the rice at House of Vege was something unusual and special. We had both white and brown rice, and though the white was the usual blank canvas to be painted with flavors, the brown was like nothing I have had in a Chinese restaurant before. House of Vege serves a mixture of several different types of brown rice which when combined have a nutty flavor and highly varied texture. When combined with the other dishes, it shifted the flavor in interesting ways toward earthy and musky tones.
Dessert was the usual oranges and fortune cookies, now traditional at least in American Chinese restaurants. This suited us just fine, as we were nicely stuffed with such innovative items that we couldn’t wish for anything more. Even Teri stated an interest in coming back the next time we go here, despite the fact that it was liable to raise her mom’s interest in feeding her more vegetables.
House of Vege makes an unlikely promise — Chinese food prepared so well that even die-hard omnivores won’t mind that it is meatless. It delivers on a more unlikely one — that the omnivores might find some dishes that they prefer that way.
House of Vege is located at 2439 Pacific Coast Highway in Lomita. Open 7 days for lunch and dinner. VI/MC/DS/AX accepted. Handicap access good. No alcohol served. For reservations or take-out call (310) 530-1180. ER