Double Veggie蔬食百匯 — Restaurant in Kaohsiung

Double Veggie? More like Half Veggie!

Their menu would be acceptable if they weren’t named Double Veggie, but because they are, there is an expectation for them to offer more vegan (全素，純素，五幸素) options.

A lot of simple dishes can easily be changed. These basic things wouldn’t be noticeable to meat-eaters, but would go a long way to making vegans feel accommodated (and also live up to the name of Double Veggie):

All 7 kinds of bread were made with milk (even PXmart has vegan bread), so nothing can be eaten in this section.

Of the 4 kinds of steamed buns, two were meat buns and the other two were vegetarian (even the most basic steamed bun that’s vegan at every breakfast store in Taiwan wasn’t vegan here), so again nothing can be eaten in this section.

All 6 kinds of cereal were given just one label: ‘lacto-vegetarian’. On face value, this is yet another section where a vegan cannot eat at. However, knowing that corn flakes are vegan, I had a bowl only to find they were stale and not crunchy. Please put your cereals in an air-tight container to keep them fresh and label them individually. Also they only have warm soy milk, which doesn’t make for nice cereal.

The kimchi wasn’t vegetarian/vegan (nearly every vegetarian restaurant I’ve been to in Taiwan has vegan kimchi!)

The dried mushroom floss is made with meat…(there are so many vegetarian/vegan options for pork floss, but none to be found here)

Black tea is pre-made with cow milk. If somebody wants milk tea, they could easily add the already offered cow milk to standard black tea. Also, has the restaurant ever heard of oat milk?

As I wandered around looking for the few vegan options to eat, most of the plates were empty so I had to wait for them to be refilled.

The fried noodles were tasty, and there was fruit and French fries, but for almost 500NTD (or included ‘free’ in the hotel room cost), I’d rather go to a corner store for a better value and...

NOT VEGAN! This is a vegetarian all you can eat buffet with vegan options, although cross-contamination is most likely happening. Maybe, 15-25% of the buffet was vegan. The food is very salty and most dishes are oily/greasy. The best part about the buffet was the fresh sprouts and salad. Overall impression; disappointing. The price for the buffet on weekdays is 438 TWD per person + 10%(?) service fee, on weekends it's more expensive. Staff don't speak nor understand much English. One of the first things the girl working there told us was that they don't use milk, only egg. She could not answer our question on how we can know what contains egg. Only the dish name was labeled in English. We had to use our google translate to scan the Chinese text on "leaf-label" next to every dish. We figured out that the GREEN leaf means vegan, red and pink/orange means egg and/or milk. Ironic that google translate clearly said MILK and the staff said: "we don't use milk". Staff needs to be better educated about their menu, the ingredients in the food they serve and the difference between VEGAN and Vegetarian. They also seem to think honey is vegan. Who knows which vegan labeled dishes contained honey. It would be helpful if they labeled the vegan dishes in English too and exclude honey. Or even better ditch the dairy, eggs, and honey altogether. Everything on the menu can easily be made with plant-based ingredients (including the ice cream, cheese, cakes, pizza, etc.) I do not recommend...

My childhood good friend Dr. R treated me to this vegetarian place for lunch today. There are some good things about this place, but it has one or two minor annoyances as well. Overall, service is nice and table is clean. As for food, desserts are actually better than hot dishes. Some traditional Asian dishes are too smelly for my taste. Surprisingly, Pad Thai is extremely delicious, but I wish they had some Thai basil and cilantro aside for customers to add at will. You know how the rest goes when you eat at a buffet: there are good stuff, bad stuff , and something in between. An issue unrelated to food: what I dislike much about this place is how crowded the seating area is. I was so worried that I might spill my soup or coffee over customers on the way back to my table. Hey, of course, they would want to squeeze in as many tables as possible to maximize profits. But they had a lot more space at the other side of the room; they were just unwilling to open it up for lunch customers to sit in. All in all, I'd say this probably is not a place that I'd like to come...