Vegetarian Find Hope at Tan Zhe Temple

When thoughtful colleagues conspired to conjure an invitation to sample the fascinating fake meat dishes at Tan Zhe temple's new vegetarian restaurant, it was warmly welcomed by Beijing This Month's fussy foreign editor.

Tan Zhe Si (see Little Dragon Stirs) served up a vegetarian feast fit for an emperor, a gargantuan array of sumptuous vegetables arranged in ever more eye-pleasing designs.

Nothing too spicy, nothing too hot, and nothing crammed full of flavor was served in traditional vegetarian temple style. Enormous amounts of work went into the preparation and service of the succulent fare.

It would be a surly guest indeed who did not savor the painstaking efforts of chefs Gao Wenyao and Wang Jiandong. The first dish was "Peaceful Four Seasons" a combination of bamboo shoots, celery, dried mushrooms and haw jelly fruit at 38 yuan.

Next dish was "Spring Colors Fill the Garden", straw mushrooms, bamboo shoots, broccoli, mushrooms and tremella at 68 yuan.

Likeed dish was prawn and corn at 38 yuan. The fake prawns are crunchy and are concocted out of taro powder.

Also worthy of mention are the stewed straw mushrooms at 38 yuan. We most enjoyed arhat honey: an edible fungus, tremella, mushrooms, winter bamboo shoots, corn and sweet taro, water chestnuts at 38 yuan. Fragrant pineapple combined pineapple, bamboo shoots, mushroom and winter bamboo shoots at 28 yuan. There's a subtlety of flavor and variety of taste that sometimes eludes the first-time diner, but this healthy Buddhist fare is surely worth foregoing a meat feast for one day at least.

Steamed Shrimp Dumpling

Ingredients:

a) Fresh shrimp meat 40 grams, bamboo shoot 8 grams, pork fat 5 grams, 2 water chestnuts

b) Coriander 5 grams, sesame oil 4 teaspoons, lard 4 teaspoons

c) Flour 2/3 teaspoon, starch 20 grams

d) Crab roe 10 grams, Dried mushrooms 5 grams, celery 5 grams

Steps

1) Cut ingredients a) & d) into small cubes like dice.

2) Mix all the a) & b) ingredients together and stir thoroughly to get the stuffing and marinate for 10 minutes.

3) Mix the c) flour and starch with boiling water to get the dough.

4) Cut the dough into small cubes at size of 3cm long/wide/high and press each cube into skin-like thin wrapper at 0.5mm thick.

5) Put the 2) stuffing at the center of the 4) wrapper, then wrap it up from three points which will make three small holes.

6) Then stuff d) crab roe, dried mushroom and celery into the three holes. Then the shrimp dumpling is ready to be cooked.

7) Steam the shrimp dumpling for 10 minutes. Serve immediately.

Ice Cream Tastes of Green Tea

Haagen-Dazs launched green tea ice cream in the city early March. The new tea ice ice cream blends the Japanese tradition of mo cha tea ceremony with the Haagen-Dazs tradition of fine ice cream.

Haagen-Dazs Green Tea ice cream is created to evoke the satisfaction of drinking Mo Cha. Mo Cha has been used in the elaborate tea ceremonies for centuries all across Japan.

Haagen-Dazs Green Tea ice cream is made from top grade green tea supplied by traditional growers in Kyoto and Nagoya, the center of traditional Japanese tea culture.

The tea leaves are then steamed to preserve their delicate flavor, and then they are very slowly stone ground to powder as fine as 0.003 microns by a traditional stone mill.

The tea powder is blended with cream to create an exceptionally full-bodied green tea ice cream.

"Haagen-Dazs green tea ice cream has, in the past three years, revolutionized the Japan market with its unique taste, taking this popular flavor to new weights," according to a press release.

"To celebrate the Haagen-Dazs Green Tea ice cream maiden voyage to this cosmopolitan city, Haagen-Dazs cafe in China has designed a delicious menu featuring the Haagen-Dazs Green Tea ice cream in 3 special dessert creations, all-using Japanese ingredients and wares."