Veggie Garden — Restaurant in Mountain View

Veggie Garden quickly became a weekend staple because it is exactly what I crave when I need some Americanized Chinese food.

They have the most incredible VG ribs that are spot on in both flavor and texture to its animal-based counterpart, so that's a great dish for transitioning vegans who are struggling.

They also serve a great complimentary salad in a sweet vinegar dressing. I have been to veggie garden at least 15 times, and I have only seen perfectly fresh lettuce and other ingredients for this, so I'm very impressed.

I can't get enough of the orange peel chicken. It's so delicious with tiny bits of the peel in the sauce! The tofu pieces turn out like perfectly fried pillows of tofu, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. Since I've ordered this more than 15 times, the tofu has been fried a little too long once or twice, losing a bit of that inner softness, but it's still a great dish even when that happens.

I also love the sweet and sour VG pork, but the tofu for this dish is cut smaller so you don't get that awesome inner softness like with the orange peel chicken. The tofu for the general's chicken entree is also cut similar to the sweet and sour pork FYI.

All the entrees I've ordered are served with healthy steamed broccoli or other veggies. You order rice separately. I can't finish a whole entree + side of rice so I always take some home for a second meal, making this an incredibly affordable spot--basically $14 for two meals! The staff is also so sweet and helpful if you want to ask about what specifically goes...

I appreciate it’s vegan, but the dishes were completely lacking flavour. Any seasoning besides soy sauce just wasn’t present. Mongolian beef should have cumin, pepper, chilli, onions, this quite literally had nothing. Not even salt from the taste of it.

Almost everything tastes the same, like neutral oil and soy sauce, no garlic, onion, salt, sugar, spices, chilli. Really disappointing, I’ve had vegan Chinese at around 10 places around the world, and by far this was the worst. I don’t know if it’s a lack of passion or ethos, or standards slipped the two times I visited over a week (because I just couldn’t believe it was that bad the first time).

Had others try it, and they had the same conclusion. The veg meat is also very low quality and weird. The chicken is more of a weird little meatball with bad texture and no flavour, closer to a bad overcooked soy chunk.

Honestly, sorry to be so scathing, and I wish the business nothing but success due to it being vegan, but you have to review your recipes. Even jarred sauces would’ve been better. I can easily cook better at home.

And the crispy rice noodles covering everything were not good. Made for a weird texture and further diluted flavour.

The only redeeming dish, was the Singapore noodles. Those were actually tasty, if too oily.

The wonton soup was edible, but not tasty.

The dumplings in chilli sauce were nothing like what I was expecting, satay was a bit strange, but tasty enough compared to the rest, which frankly was so bland and oily that even hungry I couldn’t motivate...

Since we humans are on the top of the food chain and it took us thousand of years to get there, I have always thought that turning vegetarian where a mistake except for a medical condition BUT, I want it to see by myself what a vegetarian restaurant has to offer so I walked into this Chinese Vegetarian place. It was about 18:30 Hrs and the place was empty so I explain the waitress that it was my first experience with vegetarian cuisine and I need it recommendations. She didn’t care much about my request and brought me the menu. She pointed out a couple of dishes telling me “they where popular”. To be in the safe side I finally order the same thing I always order at a Chinese restaurants : Mongolian beef and a side of rice (because I know for a fact Mongolian beef doesn’t come with rice!) Haha. The food was ok but I couldn’t help to think what those strips of “meat” I was eating where made of..,I didn’t ask.. I was in the middle of the meal when another waitress brought me the check (?) I told her that I didn’t ask for the check because I was still hungry. Without apologizing she brought me the menu again. Then I order a classic: spring rolls. Here it comes the good part: the waitress again brings back the check BEFORE the spring rolls where served!!! (?) I told her it was very impolite and rude to do that! She grabbed the check and left visibly upset.

Conclusion : if the service where up to standards I’ll go back for tofu but…. I don’t think so.. Also, I have no idea why this restaurant is rated so high … that is...