Lotus Vegetarian Restaurant

“Do you take him as your husband, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow… With that I proclaimed you as husband and wife!”

The wedding bell struck, and the loving couple proceed on happily with their dinner celebration. Or so they thought. Picture this, the wedding ballroom was full of family, relatives and friends. All around was smiling faces. Then came the horror. Dead sharks, plenty of them with blood stains still fresh from the wounds, laying everywhere, on the table, on the floor, on the stage.

100 million sharks are killed a year, 63 million for their fins alone. Yes, you, you, you and you. All of us are guilty of being a murderer. And the real cause for their destruction, the demand for shark fins, a Chinese delicacy, always present during weddings and festive occasions.

Loveshark.sg is a local organisation set up to raise public awareness about sharks and the practices threatening their survival in the wild, with the simple ‘No Shark Fin‘ pledge. Alternatives to shark fin soup includes fish maw soup, or the vegetarian shark fin soup which we had at Lotus vegetarian restaurant for the loveshark media dinner.

We started off our meal with the prosperity yu sheng. A messy affair it was, scrambling to take photographs, while holding the chopsticks to stir for our first lo-hei of 2009. And of course, the auspicious greetings wishing one another, good health and fortune.

So green, green. So bright green, green. The Caltrops with hairy mushroom represents all of the superficial view of greens equal vegetarian. Caltrops and water chestnuts are cousins, while i’m not a fan of neither, i agreed that the caltrops were full of crunch, and i enjoyed the hairy mushroom, or better known as monkey-head mushroom.

The element of fire, fiery red. All of us mistook it for red chili where it’s actually red bell pepper. The spicy pan-fried vegetarian fish was actually bean curd in disguise. The meticulous wrapping of the seaweed around to make the dish bearing a closer resemblance impressed.

The most creative award for the night goes to the fresh mushroom with asparagus. Serving in the form of a ice cream cone, several different types of mushrooms were stuffed inside, and voila!

The fruity almond rolls were my personal favourite of the 9 course vegetarian meal. The aroma of the jack fruit and banana held within the almond rolls escaped to our nose. Fried crispy outside, juicy and fruitful inside. Also there’s the Otak-pretender which came along too.

The apparent crowd favourite, stewed chestnuts with golden fungus. The bite of the golden fungus, was chewy and there’s also the hairy mushroom here.

Capturing the essence without using any real meat, that’s what all vegetarian dishes strived to do. I thought the veg meat managed to do just that. The light sauce for the meat, with the cucumbers and tomatoes, dipped in the famous chicken rice chilli.

Welcome to Malacca! The signature chicken rice balls, that originated from the Malaysian state. Except this was rice ball without using any chicken oil in the cooking process.

The legendary Tian Shan Xue Lian right before our eyes. For centuries, pugilists had been vying for the magical healing medicine. Well of course, this wasn’t the real Tian Shan Xue lian, with osmanthus in the pudding.

The 9 course set dinner served 10 people at $358 , from Lotus Vegetarian restaurant. This is a food tasting session organised by loveshark.sg, so i’ll like to thank Jaki for inviting me, to have the chance with meeting the nice people from their various organisations, and of course, the food bloggers whom I’ve read their blogs for a long time, but this being the first time i saw them in person. Support Loveshark.sg! Say no to Shark Fin!

You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!

Wonderful place for dinning with friends or family. Weekend they serve buffet style food. Eat all you want. From dim sum to japanese sushi to traditional chinese food to Sichuan noodle. Try them all and if you are still hungry, try their dessert.

Weekdays they served buffet but in a "order they serve" type. Not those you go and self service.

Food wise, they are good. Tasty and catering to our asian taste buds. The food portion is just nice but well its BUFFET isn't it, order and order till you find you can't stomach them anymore lol.

so go, try it and leave your review here. they derserved it. ^.^