beansprout

Hi, I am moving to Lengshuijiang (Hunan) to teach in a couple of weeks and have had conflicting advice about veg*anism. I will be living there for at least a year and for the most part I will be self-catering. However, I was wondering if anybody had any advice on eating out, or eating at Chinese people's houses. How do you explain veg*anism and is there enough variety in restaurants?

Bx

uk_vette

Hi,

What is veg*anism

vette

beansprout

Vegetarianism/veganism. I would preferably like replies from people who are already vegetarian or vegan and have experience of eating out in China But if anybody has any information, I am very grateful. x

uk_vette

Hi,

OK,

Thanks fro the explanation.
I have nothing to add.

Vette

kimilseung

I am not a vege-anything.

No idea about vegan, but a veggie should be fine, restaurants generally have a good selection of vegetables, I found no objections to me walking in to the kitchen and pointing at ingredients I wanted for a dish, if you can speak a Chinese language then so much the better.

hong_konger

It will be a challenge as they like to put pork on many vegetable dishes. They don't understand the concept of vegetarianism. You will get vegetables as requested but you will also get meaty things with it and its usually chopped up so tricky to remove.

Even a vegetable soup will probably have chicken stock in it !!

cappuccino

When I visited China a couple of years ago, I was dining in a Muslim restaurant in Nanjing. Thought I would be safe with the food there but they even served pork to cater to tourists

Supernoodles

It will be difficult, even if you don't see meat on your plate, it will very likely be cooked in a pan which had meat in it before, or cooked in meat based stock. They throw pork around like it is pepper.
I've ordered a meal before for my friend, telling them he was vegetarian, dish came with shrimps. They said 'whhhhat it's only shrimps!' this is in HK however...

uk_vette

Hi,

So when do you arrive in China?

vette

Not-Arrogant-Just-Better

Visit meet up.com for Hong Kong and you will find a Vegan Group. They meet up and visit different restaurants etc.

Not-Arrogant-Just-Better

Sorry, just saw you are moving elsewhere, have a look anyway, maybe there is a group on there.

hong_konger

The issue is not Hong Kong. Being a vedgy in HK is no problem. Plently available restaurants. The problem is the mainland where they sprinkle vedgetables with chopped pork !! and cook all soups in chicken broth and cook everything else by deep frying !! YUK