Vegetarian restaurants

[thedude]

i have a couple of friends from out of town visiting soon, both are vegetarians, any advise on good vegetarian restaurants in the Sukhumvit area or at least a place with a good vegetarian menu is much appreciated.

also, has anyone been to the bedroom restaurant on Soi 11?  is the food worthy of the hype??

[Rambutan]

Why don't you eat Indian? They've always alot vegetarian.

Chinese usually have some veg dishes as well.

[mowlem]

As far as I know, there are two veggie restaurants on lower Sukhumvit. One is on soi 5,7 ?, if you look out the skytrain window going to Asoke you'll see it.

Also there is one on soi 1, next to the hospital, although it is a bit formica tableish. However, a lot of Indians eat there.

[thedude]

thanks mowlem, i'll try to look out for them.  i was kinda hoping for non-indian options seeing that one of my guests comes from a country with good indian cuisine.  i was thinking maybe something along the lines of mexican or maybe some new age funky vege place, no?  what about places with a good and varied vegetarian menu?  are there no vegetarians out there?

[Rinrada]

Insight fro Phil....

Vegetarian Bangkok

Bangkok, indeed Thailand, can be something of a vegetarian’s nightmare. The overwhelming majority of Thais have no concept of a meal being remotely enjoyable unless it contains something that walks, swims, flies or crawls. I’ve spoken at length to several ‘veggies’ and their main criticism of Bangkok’s vegetarian restaurants is that many of them are not geared to vegetarians at all, and offer the standard menu that you get anywhere. In addition, many restaurants will take the meat out of certain dishes and then insist on charging the same price for it, and let’s face it – Tom Yam Kung (Spicy Prawn soup) is no longer Tom Yam Kung if you remove the prawns.

For the very strict non-meat eaters who live in Bangkok (and I mean very strict), they often find themselves going down the path to becoming almost a fully-fledged fruitarian. And why not? – fruit in Thailand is both cheap and abundant. But as fruitarians tell me – living on a diet of oranges for breakfast and bananas at bedtime only really suits people living a sedentary lifestyle. An English teacher in Bangkok needs a lot more than half a sack of rambutan to keep him going through the day......more>>>>>

http://philipwilliams.freeservers.com/index.html ::

[Rinrada]

For Veggies...

http://philipwilliams.freeservers.com/pagev.html#veggie

[thedude]

thanks for sharing your insight on this matter Rinrada.  i'd like to correct whoever Phil is that white rice does in fact have very much nutritional value and is actually quite fattening too since its pure carbohydrates.  anyway, i am no wiser nor am i comforted for the sake of my visiting guests that they'd be somewhat lost for diet options while here for a whole week.  i guess we'll have to munch on the salad appetizers or go indian for something truly substantial.  thankfully i'm a meat-eater myself or i'd go nuts before my stint here is up.  cheers.

[wolf5370]

I'm a vege or sorts (eat seafood and fish, but not mammals, birds, reptiles or insects). Many roadside restaurants only do pork and beef. Most hotels and restaurants use chicken stock even if you ask for no meat. I have many a time explained carefully in Thai that I do not want meat in my meal, for example, only to find pork or something in my Gang Dang Puk.

Sorry, I realise this is not good news to you, but as Rinrada said, Thai’s just don’t get the concept. If they are stict vege’s and do not eat seafood then sticking to fruit and desserts  is the only way of ensuring that it is meat (and meat juice) free.

As an aside, I remember a couple of years back a Brit couple came to BKK to get married. The groom was allergic to seafood. A good BKK Hotel (can’t remember which one) was to be the wedding-party venue. The organisers (family) insisted that no Seafood at all was used in any of the food – it was to be buffet. The staff of the hotel was adamant that nothing contained seafood. Later that night the groom collapsed and died! It was determined that he died of an acute allergic reaction to seafood. When quizzed the staff simply said – no seafood, only prawn!!! – Apparently, they added chopped prawn to the vege-spring rolls!

There’s a morale in their somewhere…

:ghostface:

[DaBlunt]

Why not try the Vegetarian Cottage on Soi Vipavadee-Rangsit 16, near to Jatujak. Its a bit far if you live down town like me, but the expressway gets you there quickly. As a consumer of flesh I was very suprised when my friends took me there. They use these meat alternatives that look and taste like meat but are made from Soya. Actually very tasty and not too pricey.

Very relaxed atmostphere, like being in a country cottage and the staff are very friendly. I've been there a few times now, which is strange as I normally can't stand Vegetarian food. Wide selection of both Thai and Western dishes, and a decent bar selection. Try the duck curry, but only if you're not allergic to wheat gluten, I couldn't believe it wasn't real duck.

The Vegetarian Cottage

Soi 7

Soi Vipawadee 16 (Chockcahiaummitr)

Vipawadee Rangsit Road

Jatujak

[thedude]

thanks for the suggestion DaBlunt, i'm a town dweller too but will look out for it the next time i find myself in the neighbourhood.  it sounds like they are practicing kind of vegetarianism common among buddhists, which really confounds me - i mean, why go through all the trouble to foreswear meat if all you do is end up pretending that you are having it by making your vegetables look and taste like meat.  seems a bit hypocritical to me.  its not that i have anything against it and i actually enjoy this type of vegetarian food, but there is a rational disconnect here.

[DaBlunt]

Yeah, I know what you mean, it does seem a bit strange.

I spoke to one of the people who is involved with the company that run the place, Dave I think his name is, and he said, its all about enjoying the taste and texture of food, vegetarians get a bum deal when it comes to food so they are trting to bridge the gap between Vegetarians and meat eaters by providing something that will appeal to people who want to cut down the meat from their diet but at the same time enjoy food. There are the health aspects as well, Soy is apparently pretty good for you, so they see it as health food and not necessarily Vegetarian food, they don't want to be labeled as Vegetarians, just foodies. When they put it like that I can understand where they're coming from nobody wants to be segregated When I asked why they called it the Vegetarian Cottage the bloke laughed and said you have to communicate what the restauarant is all about somehow. Ironic really. Its a meat free restaurant but serves food that tastes like meat, but isn't, technically its Vegetarian, but they don't want to be called vegies. Bizarre!

I might have to go back now.

[wolf5370]

It depends why you are a vegitarian. If you are a vegie because you don't like meat, then I understand that eating psuedo-meat is strange (may be they can taste a difference). If, however, you are a vegie for moral reasons, like me, then it is not the taste or look that you are abstaining from. It is the slaughtering/misstreatment/whatever of animals for your consumption. In this case you are abstaning from the raw source (ingredients) not the end result. If it looks like a handburger, tastes like a handburger, and isn't made from a bull's soft bits, then I'm a happy man.  

Having said all that, I actually don't like a lot of psuedo-meat foods as they smell and tatse too much like meat for my liking. I reason it akin to smoking. When you smoke, you can't smell the stink. Give up for a time and you can smell it on others from a fair distance and you find that you don't like the smell. The same is with meat (at least for me). If I walk past KFC, my wife thinks 'hom' I think 'men' - in fact it often makes me feel sick (Bacon is another 'smelly' food that has a similar affect on me). Although I eat fish/sea food and can put up with the smell of them cooking. I have not eaten red-meat or poultry for more than a decadeand the thought is now as abhorant to me as eating rotten food.

[thedude]

Wolf5370, your name really does reveal little about your vegetarian ways.  i understand what you mean about being turned off by the smell of meat but isn't that just your mind trying to deal with the fact that you don't eat meat by creating a negative reaction to it so that your body can cope better with your denial?  i think we are biologically tuned to eat meat, maybe not lots of it but definitely to have it from time to time.  it is our spiritual (rational mind) that tells us its morally wrong and overides our natural and more primal instinct to just go for it.  having said that, isn't it then a pretty sad trick to have to play on your mind that while on the one hand its creating negative signals to help you cope, and on the other you are defying it by eating food that tastes like meat.  be careful, its a psychological minefield, you are lying to yourself....i hope your mind can cope with the irony.  if not, you will have a persistent sense of guilt, which is just a way your mind tells you that you are not doing what you are telling yourself.

[Edward B]

QUOTE]i think we are biologically tuned to eat meat, maybe not lots of it but definitely to have it from time to time.  it is our spiritual (rational mind) that tells us its morally wrong and overides our natural and more primal instinct to just go for it.

I think we all eat meat now because our parents fed it to us when we were young and we got used to it. There is no primal instinct in humans to eat meat.

http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html

[wolf5370]

TheDude,

There may be some truth in it being some kind of psychological trick, but there is more to it than simply that. In Mediterranean areas the food often has a fair amount of garlic in it. Many northern Europeans can not stand the smell of garlic and can not stomach it. The same goes for curries etc. You eat what you are used to. You choose what you like the taste of from what you eat. You associate smells with what you eat. As a vegetarian, just about nothing smells like meet (especially fried chicken and bacon!). My mind does not associate these smells with food anymore – they never make my stomach rumble or my mouth water – as a meat eater, they would presumably. They would also be close enough to other meat smells to smell like something good to eat. I just don’t make that association; they are simply smells. As smells I dislike them as I do other strong or over-powering smells: perfume overkill, public toilets in Thailand, glue in cobbler stores, and so on.

After drinking too much port once (drinking game at a hotel before a Dire Straights concert actually)  I spent two days ‘talking to god on the big white telephone’. Since then I can not stand the smell of port – its very aroma makes me gag. The same with Sangria for very similar reasons.

I understand where you are coming from – many people who don’t eat insects, for example, trick themselves into thinking that it will taste horrible etc.

PS: The Wolf nickname is an old one – it relates my Coat of Arms rather than my eating habits though I’m afraid.

[Brian]

PS: The Wolf nickname is an old one – it relates my Coat of Arms rather than my eating habits though I’m afraid.

I thought that it had something to do with your sheep's clothing..

[joshua]

thedude,

i was recently in MahaSarakham[im sorry, I have no idea how far away this is from you.] and I am pretty sure I had not injested any type of meat, meat by-product, egg, fish[for those of you that do not consider fish a meat], insect, or dairy. I am a vegan which is the most strict form of vegetarian. I know everything cooked by my family was perfectly fine, and we did eat out often. My step-mother knows my diet and made sure that I was never served anything with those ingrediants. Being vegan makes your body very very sensitive to the foods you do not eat, and if i happen to injest any of them I will become sick. Needless to say, that never happened.

As for the comment about Buddhism, vegetarianism and the connection to fake meat products I agree that this does seem hypocritical. Although, like Wolf had said, a lot of us never forswore against the shape/flavor/taste of meat. Myself, I do not eat it for moral, enviromental[isnt that moral as well], and physical reasons. It is a choice benefiting my mind and body as well as trying to keep clear of the mistreatment of all creatures. When it comes to eating these products, fake meats, I can assure you that most rarely have the flavor or the texture of a true meat product. For most I think it has something to do with Edwards comment about being fed meet so now we think we need it, a lot of people grew up thinking "its not a meal without the meat" and so they desire it due to a type of conditioning. Myself, I rarely bother with such things, I do eat tofu, wheat gluten, Texturized Vegetable Protein, seitan, and various other Soy products that can be formed but I will typically just treat them as another food, and cook them as such, like a vegetable. No need to waste my time with meat replacers.

People go from an all meat diet to an all Soy-meat diet and it really is no healthier. The reason why a vegan/vegetarian diet is healthy is because now you MUST eat all the vegetables on your plate to be full, but some people fall into the soy-meat and potatoes game, sadly. When I am fully fluent in Thai I will explain to my family why I do it, with what little i knew this time around I was unable to form clear concepts for them. Soon enough though.

So, in closing, and I apologize for the length of the post, if you have someone[preferably thai] that can speak with the cook in smaller outdoor places or you have the facilities to cook for oneself, you should have no problem, i didnt. And I hope i spread some light about vegetarianism/vegansim.

[thedude]

Edward B and Wolf, thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.  I can understand that our taste for food are largely due to conditioning, so it takes some getting used to eating new food from other cultures etc.  

I think that our reaction to reject or at least be weary of what we are not familiar with (garlic, curry, whatever) is a natural and highly evolved warning mechanism that protects us against eating the wrong things and getting poisoned by the untested.  Its a survival instinct for our species.  Likewise, if you nearly died from an overdose of say port (i had a similar experience with Gin as a teenager), then your limbic regions acquire a new program to reject it in the future to prevent a repeat of such an unpleasant experience.   Its self preservation, because you had almost killed yourself the last time your rational mind took charge.  

However, i cannot think of any culture that does not eat meat as a natural part of its diet, at least not any old culture.  This is because humans started off being hunter-gatherers, our primeval ancestors would mostly gather fruits, nuts, seeds for sustanance, however, they'd also hunt down, kill and eat the odd wild animal because it provides a rich source of protein.  This is what I meant when I said that its natural for us to eat meat.  However please don't take this to mean that I'm against vegetarianism, i'm not, i was merely stating what i thought was scientifically factual.

I think vegetarianism occured as we got more advanced as a species, and as we achieved a level of survival and progression, we started to ask more rational and spiritual questions like "why am i here" and "how should i live", leading us to develop values and systems...the rest is history.

Thanks also for your thoughts Joshua, i never knew that vegetarianism had progressed to a soy-meat versus real vege debate.  Now thats a topic for me to impress the girls with when we have the next vegetarian dinner party.

[joshua]

Always happy to help. I am not sure how much of a real debate there is between soymeat based diets and vegetable only diets but people should really take the time to realize that merely not eating meat doesnt make you healthy, its what you put in its place. A meat substitute cannot be that much of an improvement can it? ha, anyway, always glad to speak on this topic.

joshua

[BigJohnBKKPieman]

If your're looking for vegetarian food try Thonglor (sukhumvit 55) between soi 7 & 9. There is a chinese vegetarian retaurant an Big John's (2 doors away) serves western style vegetarian meals, including - pea soup, vege burgers, curry-tofu pies, vege sausage rolls, soy sauasages with mashed potato and vege gravy - mock smocked chicken breast with steamed vegetables and a whole lot more. ph 02 392 6518

[Eastender]

For cheap and excellent quality vegey food the Atlanta Hotel on Sukumvit Soi 1 is good, (well, simply the best food I've had in BKK - and I'm vegey), it also has a good menu explaining the history of the dishes.  However, much as I like going there, it may not be what you want for style and ambience so check it out on your own first.

[Bob Chittie]

 it sounds like they are practicing kind of vegetarianism common among buddhists, which really confounds me - i mean, why go through all the trouble to foreswear meat if all you do is end up pretending that you are having it by making your vegetables look and taste like meat.

Many of them may have started eating meat and enjoyed the taste and become accustomed to the texture and look. Maybe it makes the switch a little easier to handle. And I know for sure it helps in bringing in non veggie Thais who will eat vegetarian occasionally. Anyway, what should all the gluten/soy product looks like? it doesn't have a natural shape of its own. They've got to do something with it so why not make it into the shape of chicken,pork etc?

Cheers

[ricklev]

Anotai Restaurant, off the Soi adjacent to Rama 9 Hospital, is about as fine a restaurant as I've ever eaten at and it also happens to be vegetarian.  Everything about it is quality.  Both Thai and farang food are served.  The best salads and pasta in Thailand!  I generally spend about 250 baht per person.  I have no interest here other than sharing a wonderful experience.  Not sure of how to provide better directions, but just plug it into a search engine and you should be able to figure it out.

[taxexile]

try "raan duerm" on soi 22.

about 150 metres down from sukhumvit on the left near the fruit shops.

they will do veggie dishes for you , they speak good english,and the food is good and not too expensive.