Less Gluten & Mock Meats at the Renovated Ling Zhi

I haven't stepped into Ling Zhi Vegetarian (靈芝) for ages. That's mainly because I dislike the standard dishes at Chinese vegetarian restaurants. They tend to be oily, full of carbs and gluten with so many fried items, going low on the vegetables. They're catering for people who want vegetarian food on specific days but who aren't actually vegetarian. That demographic makes a huge difference to a restaurant's menu.

For dinner tonight, we ordered a number of items, and were ready to tapau the leftovers. Hurhurhur. J rewarded herself with a regular Coke after a long week at work. I also bravely had a can of Coke Zero. Heh! The restaurant closed for renovation for weeks in April. The lights brighter, and the area cleaner, but whyyyy are the interiors still so dated?! Dohhhh. The restaurant used to have loads of mock meats in the menu. The parent Tung Lok Group has promised that gone are those days, and they literally wrote this statement on their website to reassure a wider audience that their food also caters to allergies and offer nutritional value. 

Gone is the conservative style of preparing vegetarian dishes with mock meats. In its place is a range of dishes filled with wholesome goodness and tonifying fare, prepared from the finest and freshest ingredients. We use a selection of premium and organic produce from our specially-contracted farms to bring you cuisine at the best quality.

I raised eyebrows at the frequency of 'truffle' appearing in the menu. Some seemed to be actually shaved black truffles, but most stated were 'truffle oil'. That's a big no no for me. That's so synthetic and I personally dislike the taste and smell of truffle oil in my food. J's truffle mushroom bisque was not bad at all, and we also thought they could just do away with the truffle oil. I opted for the double-boiled lingzhi soup — tasted fine to me! I gulped at the kale broth on the menu. That would take some guts to sip it, or if you really like kale.

The snow peas with asparagus, celery and macadamia were stir-fried nicely. Crunchy. J said that the deep-fried yam ring was good. I know nothing about yam rings, but I would eat some of it. The fried hor fun with preserved vegetables and kai lan was middling. I was thinking, a white version with less soy, closer to Teochew kway too would be nice. Heh.

People who like mala and Sichuan pepper would enjoy the Firecracker Monkey Head Mushroom. It was a great dish, but not for me. Next time, I'll stick to my regular order here of monkey head mushrooms in a dragonfruit, with the wasabi-mayo on the side. Since we were too lazy to look for dessert elsewhere, we shared a cold bowl here — chilled aloe vera jelly lime sorbet.