Kim Key Vegetarian Restaurant — Restaurant in Nanaimo

This is a new restaurant. They have not yet had their grand opening yet. The restaurant features two female chefs from China.

You can see that they have spent a lot of time and money on the renovations of this location and are working on developing a thoughtful menu with customer feedback.

I agree with others that this restaurant is almost too fancy for Nanaimo crowd and reflects in the pricing... however it's important to note they are very focused on using really high end ingredients and almost everything is made in house, with consideration for the purity of the ingredients. They are also new to operation and the front of house is working to figure out the kinks of how to best serve the menu. They even asked about the dishes we thought were best (plates, bowls, etc) and are open to feedback. I really wish much success for them because we had a very enjoyable experience and love to support local restaurants who are sharing their passion..

Summary: The menu is actually fully vegan. We were greeted with delicious herbal tee in beautiful teapot.

We were three people and split four dishes and dessert. We had the potsticker dumplings - these were some of the best dumplings ive ever had!! We also had a mushroom hot plate, the Dan Dan noodles which are a must as one of the chefs is from Szechwan and hand makes these!! and their speciality mushroom hot pot- this was a bit on the pricy side but they use really expensive mix of quality mushrooms.

Everything was delicious.

The lotus seed pudding soup dessert was something I've never had before. We asked for some sugar as it was not sweet enough for our Canadian sweet tooth (but would probably be perfect for the Asian taste bud ;p) and it tasted amazing with their date sugar.

I recommend for folks to come support this new local business , if you're vegan, vegetarian or neither you...

Went for dinner for 2 to try out the new vegetarian place. Thought it would be a typical fake meat Chinese restaurant. This was nothing like that. This is a gourmet, very specialized type of food and it is delicious. I have tried every type of vegetarian food being a vegetarian for over 30 years, but I have never had anything like this. Beware, this is not a budget place, the prices are high, but the ingredients are expensive. The Kung Pao Hericium, which is unbelievable good, contains Lions Mane mushrooms. I looked them up and they are $20/lb and I bet there was 1 pound in the dish. These mushrooms are like nothing I have ever tasted, they were amazing. The stone pot tofu had a hearty beefy sauce like I have never had, so good. The owner said the Szechwan noodle dish was cooked by a chef from the Szechwan region of China, how amazing is that. The portion sizes were good. The place has been completely renovated and looks amazing. The dinnerware and serving dishes are all very nice. This place seems out of place in Nanaimo, it seems like it should be in downtown Vancouver at a fancy hotel. Well I guess we are lucky to have them here. There were still not fully set up, I am sure it will be more amazing once they are. Thank you for rescuing boring Nanaimo with a top notch veggie place. The owner said she is a lifelong vegan, she...

High prices, relatively plain / mild dishes. Not the variety of menu I hoped for - does not serve sides of rice to go with your entrees, does not serve anything like mantou or baozi either. Seriously they serve french fries but not white (or brown, or any type of) rice. What is going on there. It appears they only serve tea as 功夫茶 for ~$13. I feel jiaozi with oil and balsamic vinegar is an odd combination that does not work. The prices are way out of step with what is offered here. The 三丝炒面 is good but it would be more appropriately priced at like half of what it is... basic and a bit greasy. Sorry to be harsh, I was disappointed by this place. I hope it can be better, but it seems that everyone else is loving it, so this is my view. The service was excellent and the place...