I don't understand people who hate tofu and mock meat. Sure, fake buffalo wings and tofurky are kind of wrongheaded, but bean curd and gluten can be completely tasty, especially when transformed into dim sum. It doesn't seem unnatural.
I only ever seem to patronize vegetarian dim sum house when my sister is in town. It was a hit on her last visit so a repeat performance was in order. This time we totally went overboard. What's shown below is only about half of the food that was on the table, and even with five diners we all were able to take home leftovers. It's easy to order wildly because you just check off boxes with the quantities you want and just about everything is $2.95.
Turnip cakes are the most like "real" dim sum. The only thing missing are the pork bits. These are served with oyster sauce, though, instead of sweet soy.
Lotus root slices were sandwiched between what I swear was mashed potato. The crunch and mush was a nice combo.
Ok, more potato. These were essentially fritters.
We had three varieties of rice flour rolls. White fungus and golden mushrooms are above. There were also mock ham and coriander and mock shrimp.
Fried dough blobs.
Buddha's bean curd rolls were a hit.
You never know if you're getting a sweet or savory. I thought these would contain lotus seed paste, but they were filled with crushed peanuts.
Obviously, these shark's fin dumplings didn't contain any endangered species. They did mimic the texture, though.
Pork buns are one of my favorite Chinese snacks. You might think faux ones would be a bust but they are fairly convincing. You can't completely match the sweet meaty, roasty flavor of char siu, yet these are respectable in their own right.
Tapioca dumplings filled with sesame paste were a little heavy. Half of one is plenty.
Classic shrimp dumplings minus the shrimp. I've always liked fake crab so mock shrimp isn't much different.
Honestly, I'm not sure what this was and if anyone actually ordered it. It seemed like one of those bland almond jelly desserts. Very blanc mange. The nuggets might have been mung beans even though they look like corn.
Vegetarian Dim Sum House * 24 Pell St., New York, NY
