Our earlier post Trendy Plant-Based Eateries in New York described three plant-based eateries often frequented by locals and travelers.

In this post we cover our visits to a Chinese Restaurant and a Korean Restaurant in the city that strictly serve plant-based meals.

Budha Bodai at 5 Mott Street in Chinatown, New York is a Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant that serves vegan food as well. The restaurant is committed to achieving and maintaining the delicate flavors of China's deep culinary history.

Kent Zhang the owner first opened Budha Bodai in Flushing in 1998 and moved to the Manhattan location in 2004. It serves a menu created by Executive Chef Joe Wong, following a strictly Buddhist diet: no meat and no aromatics.

The restaurant sticks to conventional names of Chinese cuisine, but put the word veg in some of the menu items. Examples are General Tso's Veg. Chicken, Veg. Chicken or B.B.Q Meat Fried Rice, Shredded Veg. Chicken Pan Fried Noodle, and Veg. Lobster in Black Bean Sauce.

Budha Bodai, famous for its vegetarian dim sum, use mock meat for its dishes, using wheat protein, vegan oil, tofu, mushrooms, soybeans, and taro roots to create consistencies similar to meat and fish dishes with a focus in the seasoning.

The more than 200 items on the menu make this place popular among Jews, Chinese, and those who seek Halal food.

Entering Budha Bodai is like entering any Chinese Restaurant, with a simple décor, some roundtables with Lazy Suzans (rotating tray) for groups of people.

 Image: Budha Bodai

There were seven of us in the group for Sunday Brunch and we just couldn’t resist ordering dim sum sets: shrimp dumpling, bamboo pith dumpling, steamed vegetable bun, spring rice roll, sesame rice roll and sweet sticky rice sesame ball. Dim sum soon followed by shark fin soup, General Tso’s veg chicken, and Yang Chow fried rice.

The vegans among us sometimes took a halt while eating. We wondered whether the foods are really vegan as they looked like real meat and tasted so good. Sinfully delectable mango pudding and vegan cheesecake ended our satisfactory brunch.

Hangawi at 12 East 32nd Street in Korea Town, New York consideres vegetarianism as the healthiest and safest diet.

William and Terry Choi opened Hangawi in 1994, when vegetarian dining was still rare. As native Koreans, they have the benefit of understanding traditional Korean cuisine and envisioning many vegetarian dishes that could be introduced to New Yorkers.

We made a reservation for a 5.30 PM dinner at Hangawi on a Friday and discreetly informed to finish by 7.00 as the place will be full as it always is.

The dining place was quite dark, we were asked to remove our shoes and sit on cushions at low tables. We listened to soothing music while waiting for the menu to arrive.

The Chois, Hangawi owners, believes that In order to achieve good health, the food you eat must also be a balance of these forces of um and yang or yin and yang. A healthy vegetarian diet should be a balance of um foods such as green vegetables and fruits, and yang foods such as roots, radishes, carrots, and potatoes.

The upscale restaurant has an Emperor Tasting Menu with Korean specialties for starters, appetizers, entrée , and dessert. Starters are a selection of porridge sampler or crispy kale pancakes and arugula. Guests can choose spring appetizer platter or croquette galore. The platter consists of stuffed apple, spicy rice cake sticks, silky tofu in mushroom sauce, and kale dumpling while the croquette galore are kabocha, zucchini, and maitake mushroom. Crunchy tempeh stone bowl rice or mushroom sizzler in a hot plate make the entrée. Food is served with kimchi and condiments.

As we did not have much time, we asked for Hangawi’s favorites and settled for kale pancake as an appetizer. Main course of vermicelli noodles with stone bowl rice came with vermicelli noodles, leek, asparagus and maitake mushrooms on top of stone bowl rice. We also ordered organic zen bibimbap, a dish of organic vegetables, mushrooms and wild mountain greens, served with organic brown rice.

There is nothing as pleasing as having hot food, in taste and temperature, in a cool New York Spring.

New York is definitely a haven for those who enjoy plant-based eating either for health or spiritual reasons. Ethnic restaurants that serve plan-based meals keep popping up around the city. We hope to visit more of these eateries in the near future.

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Text & Images: Omar Niode Foundation, unless otherwise noted.