Gourmet Vegetarian Restaurant

+.5 for service
Been here a couple of times now. I think this restaurant has been here for a long time, but I’m rarely in this plaza so I never had the chance to explore the choices here. Recently I came here to run an errand and noticed a couple of interesting restaurants that stood out, such as this one.
There’s not much to the design of this restaurant; it’s quite a no frills place. Both times I arrived for lunch and only had their dim sum menu, and I also purchased some veggie turnip cake for takeout since it was Chinese New Year.
Their turnip cake is quite good, and thick as well. Portions are quite big. The mock meat that they use is decent (e.g: siu mai, beef dumplings), though if you’re not used to mock meat it might taste a little weird at first. If you don’t know where to start, definitely start with the turnip cake.
My gripe with this place, however, is that they’re quite heavy on MSG. Yes, vegetarian restaurants use MSG too! You get that thirst in your mouth quite fast after you finish your meal, so be sure you drink a lot of tea/​water when you’re eating.
Service is good for Asian standards. Don’t expect much, but you won’t be yelled at for no reason at all.
If Wu Tai or Graceful is off your budget scale, this place is a good substitute for what it’s worth.

We came on Chinese new year day and were limited to a one page set menu and no substitutions allowed. We ended up ordering the 4 course menu and added an appetizer dish of different gluten and seitan. There was nothing special with the dishes… very basic, flavour was pretty bland especially the tofu and mushroom dish. 2.5 stars because i did not like that they restricted us to a set menu and for lack of choice and flavours. food was also premade and 5 dishes came out in 5 minutes after ordering. They were also not extremely busy so not sure why they had to do this. I would prefer Wutai on woodbine… much fancier and tastier options. Free green bean soup dessert though. Bill came up to 70 bucks out the door for 4 people.

Gourmet Vegetarian is not «gourmet» if we are going by the dictionary definition. However, it is a family friendly, low key, no nonsense place to have a good chinese vegetarian meal, be it dim sum or dinner served by very efficient staff.
Favourite dim sum offerings include fried turnip «cake», rice rolls with veg and tofu, veg chicken with hot and sour sauce and pan fried «meat» dumplings. They also offer various steamed dumplings including har gow and siu mai, as well as decent congee and soup noodle selections.
Dinner favourites include curry «chicken», «beef» and bitter melon stir fry. Their hot and sour soup (red) is one of the better ones I’ve had. Many mock meat dishes to choose from and portions are huge.

Came here on a few occasions and it seems this place is fairly popular. In comparison to my favourite chinese vegetarian restaurant (Graceful Vegetarian), this restaurant is definitely far more affordable. They have a wide array of menu items, and in my opinion they seem to do fried items the best. They use a well seasoned batter, and fried items are super crispy. Try their interpretation of fried «eel» which uses a fungi to imitate the texture of eel!
My only gripe about this restaurant is that they are super heavy on oil and seasoning. Generally when I go to a vegetarian restaurant I aim to have a lighter meal, but unfortunately since their best items are fried it is difficult to escape from grease and saltiness. I would also recommend bypassing the soups. Not the best quality and not the best tasting.
A must try here is their signature dessert sweet soups! My personal favourite is the cashew one. I believe they make all their dessert soups in house and they’re super popular! Better snatch those up early if you’re buying the dessert soups to go though since they tend to sell out by the evening.

The best Vegetarian food ever !! Def will recommend to try even if you are a carnivore! This is a must try place !!

I should start with a disclaimer: I’m a big meat eater. My friends nicknamed me carnivore in high school because of it. When my mom said she wanted to try a vegetarian place I was hesitant to say the least but this place definitely didn’t make me miss the meat. The star off was mainly for the uncomfortable chairs and tables and that it wasn’t really «gourmet» cuisine.
We got the assorted gluten and bean curd ($ 5.50), veggie steak with BBQ sauce ($ 8.99) and fried rice with tomato and cream sauce ($ 10.99). We also asked for less oil and no msg which is always a nice option to have since Chinese food tends to be on the greasy msg-​y side.
The portions were good for the price and we only finished about ²⁄₃ of the food with enough leftovers for the next day.
I love assorted bean curds so no complaints there other than they could’ve cut the pieces a little smaller so it’d be more bite size. Big dish for $ 5.50 too!
The «steak» with BBQ sauce was pretty good too. The texture was very meat-​like and it had pineapples, celery and green/​red peppers. There was a little too much sauce for my liking but that’s just personal preference.
I liked the rice the most out of the 3 dishes. The sauces were made well and the rice was flavourful and fragrant. There were these imitation squid pieces on the cream side that I can only describe the texture in Chinese but I really liked it.
They also give complimentary dessert soup and we got the cashew flavour. All their dessert soups are homemade and you can definitely tell. It was delicious. So good we got the walnut dessert soup ($ 4.50) to bring home for later and it was amazing! Nothing like homemade dessert soup.
There’s so many different dishes we will definitely be back to try more!

This place is an alright veggie resto with reasonable prices.
Their food is flavourful and the menu has a greater variety of flavours compared to some other vegetarian restaurants where everything tastes the same. It’s kind of your standard greasy Chinese food here though, so don’t expect to walk away with a «healthy» meal by any means. The dimsum here is OK but nothing special — I would much prefer Wutai or Graceful Vegetarian for more interesting, high-​quality dimsum. Essentially, I only come to this place when I am looking for a cheaper, no-​frills vegetarian meal.
It’s a massive menu and none of the descriptions sound very appetizing, so here are a few of my personal go-​to items:
— Veggie Meatball Thai-​Style (sweet and savoury, just a slight hint of spice, mock meat is lightly fried, topped with some green/​red peppers and pineapples)
— Deep fried veggie chicken (salt and pepper deep fried veggie meat served with some red/​green peppers and peanuts)
— Any of the veggie chicken hot plates (these are the sizzling plates)
— Rolls of seafood and bean curd on hot plate (basically tastes like mock fish served with something that’s kind of like a black bean sauce)
— Veggie meat ball in sweet and sour sauce (basically mock sweet and sour pork)
— Hot Pot: Bean curd stick w/​veggie tender beef (interestingly the Chinese name calls this mock lamb and not beef, and that’s really what it’s closer to being)
— Fried rice noodle with XO sauce, satay sauce, or just plain ol’ veggie beef, depending on my mood
Generally I don’t really recommend the mock beef here because it doesn’t taste all that great. The mock chicken tends to be much better.
Don’t expect spectacular service. It’s pretty barebones, just gets the job done. As a nice touch they often serve up some dessert on the house (some form of «sweet soup»). They do NOT accept credit cards by the way.

Went over with a couple carnivorous friends. When they saw all the fake may available, they were quite excited although I’m not the biggest fan of that stuff. We ordered one of the shredded pork rice dish, an egg dish and a Singapore something. The clear winner was the Singapore dish with the right level of spices. The egg was more like an omelette which was not what I was expecting but was good. The other dish was a bit bland. Big portions and good prices. I will be back. Recommended.

Cash only and charge tax and the service is not amazing … You have been warned
And food is oook

It is a vegetarian restaurant and as a meat eater I cannot expect much of course. The food in fine, the waiters there are friendly and helpful. Their service is good. The food is oily though. So do not expect that it is going to be healthy just because you heard of the word vegetarian food.

This is my go to restaurant in Richmond Hill when I get my vegan Asian food cravings. They’ve got the greasy, authentic, Chinese comfort food and the healthier options too.
The quality of the food has been consistently good. The quality of the service has been consistently meh.
Note that you can ask for no msg and no egg (for my fellow vegans).

Didn’t feel like letting my wife cook that night we went out so I decided that we should go somewhere that neither of us had gone to before, just for adventure’s sake. My requirement was it needed to have food I can eat on my diet and Vegetarian nearby came up with this one. Plus Allison Y. reviewed it so it got us interested.
So we ordered two dishes: Satay beef on broccoli and steak in black pepper sauce on a hot plate. No real meat though.
The satay beef on broccoli was a little dry, in that there was no sauce or it got sucked by the fake beef.
The steak on black pepper sauce was much better though it was a bit spicy for me. However, it is tolerable so most people won’t even feel it.
Near the end I ordered one more dish which was some sort of mixed plate. Some parts were good some parts were meh. I liked trying to figure out which meat each bit represented. However, near the end we decided to pack it in since I did eat too much already.
Service was okay. Nothing special.
Since there is really nothing that sets this place apart which is why I gave it a 3-​star.

Didn’t consider service so now I am updating. The dinner service (maybe just that waitress didn’t smile at all!) wasn’t too great. I enjoyed the more friendly lunch service.
Food quality at lunch I think might be a little better as well.

I stumbled across this place while on lunch from work.
They had a dim sum menu and I pretty much ordered everything on it. It was really good for vegetarian food. It’s no Graceful Vegetarian but its really good to take a whole family out for a meal.
Check it out!

Okay — updating my review. I came here for my first cousin’s (once removed)‘s 100^th day birthday or whatever you’d like to call it. We came here one of those «9-​course meals» kinda things and it was AWESOME. Service was impeccable, and the food was SO good — like ridiculously good. Everything was made out of tofu, soy, etc, and looked (and tasted ABSOLUTELY) delicious. Definitely will recommend.
(And I came here again for dim sum, and you know what? Not bad! I guess my first time wasn’t the best).

Gourmet Vegetarian is a Buddhist vegetarian restaurant. Unlike Graceful Vegetarian at Market Village, Gourmet Vegetarian targets to be an inexpensive and down-​to-​earth vegetarian restaurant. This review is about the few dinner experiences I have had.
Food: The imitation meat really looks like the real thing. I always have fun trying to see if the various vegetarian meats, made out of tofu, taste like the real deals. The texture, however, is hits and misses. The food is on the oily side. However, the restaurant allows you to specify less oil, less salt, less sugar, no MSG, etc., when you place the orders. I usually ask to have no MSG and less oil, and the food still tastes delicious. I often find that the dishes that don’t require imitation meat, such as spicy long beans (not that spicy at all), mushroom with vegetables, etc., taste impressively good. The portion is big.
Services: The services are effective and friendly. I think the waiters and waitresses here are just really nice people.
Décor: The interior decoration is non-​descriptive. There are a few Chinese calligraphy paintings hanged on the walls.
In conclusion, I enjoy the meals here as they are simple. This Chinese restaurant is also suitable for people for any ethnic groups who need to eat vegetarian dishes.

I have visited this restaurant recently twice. The décor, cleanliness and the service maintains the same average standard with service a bit better most likely depend on the number of patronages at the time.
Its main dish for the veggie which display near the door is worse than last time. One of the bamboo skin somehow got deep fried. Although it is not bad, there can be better one, even last time is better. The fish soup has a lot of corn starch and is salty. The pot of rice with Shanghai bean curd is not bad. The spinach dish is the best both for its volume and taste.
I will give it a 3 stars but if the food quality, especially the main veggie dish deteriorates, then a 2 stars is coming.

I don’t usually go to vegetarian restaurant as I would eat fair bit of vegetables with meat, I don’t need to go having a vegetarian day once a week or once a month.
wanted to try out this place as many people told me this is a good place.
Mixed tofu sheet rolls and gluten pieces, it’s probably the worst presentation I have seen. it’s like they took few dishes of left overs from other tables and put them together.
the tofu pieces has no flavor, not salty nor sweet. the red gluten should taste sour, was just flavorless. and the one should be a curry taste, was simply hot with loads of red pepper seeds, but no curry spice at all…(well, may be some coloring?)
at this point, we were ready to cancel all the other orders and leave.
the other dim sum arrives, these are dim sum made with all vegetables or with imitation meat. the looks really resembles regular dim sum. but the wrapping on the steamed dumpling was so thick and chewy, it’s not good eats.
I won’t go again, and I wouldn’t suggest anyone to go too.

Went here for the dim sum after seeing it on a previous trip to ambassador.
Order:
Various bean curd rolls (fairly good, not standout but not disappointing)
Bean curd and gluten (best dish by far, love the curry and sweet and sour bean curds, also most expensive)
Eggplant and black bean
Siu Mai (texture doesn’t hit the spot, best consumed quickly noticed that it dried quickly)
Shrimp dumpling (shrimp is not quite the same, imagine imitation crab texture)
Beef balls (great texture, emulates the real thing quite well)
Cheung fan (filled with diced tofu, wished the tofu would actually stay in it though)
Turnip cake (quite starchy, it is nothing to rave over)
Custard & egg dumpling (Very tasty, definitely keep your eye on as they go quickly!)
Overall cost $ 45 for five people, not too bad and to be honest we ordered a bit too much too so it could have been even cheaper.
Definitely coming here again!

Don’t be fooled by the name… its NOT gourmet! I’ve been here twice and it’s essentially your classic greasy Chinese restaurant except its allllll vegetarian! I work in the area so go here for lunch.
There are a zillion menu choices (too many actually) and a dim sum menu in addition to the zillion other choices.
It’s definitely a novelty as a vegetarian to have so many choices, but it is a bit overwhelming. We ended up making a few great choices and a few not so great choices. I was really impressed with some of the fake meat dishes and not so much with one of the rice/​tofu dishes (tofu was booger slime in my mouth — ewww). I think you’d have to go here a lot of find out what the awesome dishes are. The food is crazy cheap and I will be back for lunch!
The key is to go with a few people and split all your dishes.