Liu Lin — Restaurant in Brussels

Honestly Liu Lin has been my most disappointing food experience of 2019!

Finding vegan in Brussels is HARD. I think we can all agree on that, which is why I was so excited to try Liu Lin, also I've travelled extensively in Taiwan and love Taiwanese food.

Well first of all liu Lin isn't Taiwanese. It's vaguely East Asian influenced. But who cares, most 'asian' places in Europe aren't authentic.

My disappointment comes from the simple fact that while Liu Lin may in fact be 100% plant based, it isn't healthy. All the starters are fried, the tofu is way over cooked. This is just unhealthy vegan junk food masquerading as actuslly good, plant-focused food. Veggies in the curry dish were overcooked to the point of being soggy, and nothing had any flavour. full of chemicals too.

I couldn't finish anything I ordered and maybe ate 1/5 or a quarter of it, and my non-vegan boyfriend didn't want to either. After five minutes of digesting my stomach started to turn the way it does when you eat soggy fried food drenched in oil.

If you actually enjoy vegan food, as in if a plate of fresh fruit makes you salivate and raw veggies as a snack sounds up your alley, don't waste your money here. You will regret it and you will feel sick.

Also the vibe in the restaurant is just bad. There's no service and you order at the bar. There's 11 florescent overhead lights. It's bright enough you need to squint. I compared it to my primary school canteen but my boyfriend thought it reminded him of a hospital.

In short- Bruxellois vegans, you'd do well to steer clear of Liu lin.

**Edited an hour after finishing what I ate and my heart is racing. This only happened to me on the rare occasion I ate super super oily fried food before I went vegan!!

*second update to my review! Liu Lin management removed their abusive reply to this review and posted a new one which is vaguely respectful while still not addressing the issue of their gross frozen food.

HOWEVER!!!! THE MANAGEMENT HAS NOW STARTED STALKING MY PERSONAL INSTAGRAM FROM THEIR PERSONAL INSTAGRAM 😂😂😂😂🤦🏼‍♀️. Seriously? I'm not mad, idk how they found it, but seriously????

I didn't like your nasty food. I don't like liars and fake people capitalising on 'trendy' vegan food, and I'm not afraid to speak out. Accept it and move on. Improve your food. Make actual vegans...

We were really excited to try this place out, decided to give it a try and unfortunately we turned out to be extremely disappointed.

When we arrived we were told that the KITCHEN closed at 9pm, that was fine from our side as it’s common knowledge that the majority of places closes the kitchen first and let customers enjoying their time and food with no rush. Well I have to say that this was not the case, the entire place closes at 9pm and that was not communicated properly so we felt rushed to finish our food. They literally started to clear the place when we were still eating and everyone had to leave as well. But I guess that was a communication issue so, nevermind?

Speaking about food - it looks visually really nice and colourful, however when you taste it it’s recognisable that veggies are frozen from the texture and blandness. Flavours are totally unbalanced, our two mains were either too sweet or too savoury. There was a lack of protein in the menu and to be fair paying 17€ for a portion of rice and frozen vegetables it’s already a major reason to avoid this place.

Now when we got up to get our bill - because I forgot to mention that there is no real service at the table, you have to stand up to order and pay - we paid 50€ in two and we were speechless for having spent that much and enjoying maybe 20 minutes in the place…

We had to bring this up to their attention because I think feedback is gold and without there is no way to grow especially in an environment such as hospitality. Unfortunately the managerial figure was not open for feedback and as soon we explained the situation there has not been a sincere apology, try to make us wrong, something to redeem themselves but weird looks and facial expressions that made us feel uncomfortable. We would have expected an effort from the manager also we were accused that we were asking for something for free. I found this attitude completely unacceptable and probably unexperienced from a customer service point of view. Rarely experienced this lack of awareness before.

If you want to feel robbed, eat bland and overpriced food for no reason in a non customer orientated place, then...

I gave a very negative review for Liu lin with another Google account; we were very dissapointed by the dirty quality of the food, very oily and fried with soggy over cooked veggies and tofu.

Unfortunately restaurant management couldn't accept criticism and replied to my review to attack me! Apparently the fact that my boyfriend ate all the food (it isn't cheap at €36 for two people no drinks) means we had to have loved it...well no we just aren't the type of people to waste food and felt obliged to finish it no matter how disgusting it was.

The management went on to attack me for the fact that we received an extra dish...well again, no, the server messed up and served us the wrong dish at first before bringing the correct one. She asked if we wanted to return or keep the wrong dish and I had to ask her in two languages if it would be thrown away if we returned it, to which she couldn't give a straight answer. So we felt guilty and ate that dish...

Finally, to take the cake on the ridiculousness of Liu lin, the management decided to accuse us on their response to my original review of having 'personal problems' and of having a couple's fight. Wait what?? Sorry guys to tell you we don't have any personal problems -just problems with your terrible frozen fast food! And we're very happy together and not fighting :))) maybe so long time putting processed poor quality food in your bodies is disrupting your ability to separate realoty from fiction. Anyways my point in writing reviews on Google is to help others live and eat well! Not to personally attack anyone or be personally attacked by anyone.

Liu lin management - come on guys, get it together ! Accept some criticism of your food and don't go on the offensive personally against people who see through your fake facade of pseudo veganism and want to warn others. Both my boyfriend and I were genuinely sick to our stomachs after forcing your food down our throats and I have no reason to make that up.

Foodies / vegans / humans of brussels-...