Capital Seafood Restaurant 金都 - Irvine, CA : Vegetarian Hong Kong Style Chow Mein

Although there is no vegetarian noodles on the menu, you can always ask them for the non-meat version at a Chinese restaurant. Chinese restaurants usually have tofu as a substitute. One such example is here at Capital Seafood.

Hong Kong Style Chow Mein

Sometimes I indulge in the Hong Kong style crispy fried noodles. They're usually seafood/meat, but I just ask for the vegetarian version...no meat please. They have always been able to make the dish that way. Although I have not asked to substitute with tofu, so I'm not sure how those would turn out. The veggies you get however, may be a little different each time. Like in this version, I got a bunch of vegetable stems instead of leaves. Phooey! In any case, just mix the veggies on top with the fried noodles below...and yum crunchy chewiness at the same time. =)

Capital Seafood Restaurant
http://www.capital-seafood.com/irvine/
Location this was eaten at:
Diamond Jamboree
2700 Alton Parkway #127
Irvine, CA 92606
(949)252-8188
Hours:
M-F 10:30AM - 10:00PM
Sat-Sun 9:00AM - 10:00PM

Chef Hung Taiwanese Beef Noodle 洪師父牛肉麵 - Irvine, CA

Cold day = warm soup noodles. Not today, but the day that these were eaten was a cold day....or I'd like to think it was. Noodles are my favorite. I prefer noodles over rice and bread. Yup yup, I'm a noodle person. So I've been meaning to try Chef Hung's noodles, but have been waiting for the insanity of a new place to go away...and for them to iron out their kinks. It also helped that we decided to go eat at around 4PM on a Saturday when it's not really meal time. 

Seasonal Vegetable with Noodle in Soup

Being a vegetarian my choice of noodle soup was limited to the vegetable noodles. You can pick what type of noodles you want. I picked "flat" noodles thinking they were like linguine but they came out to be what I would call "wide" noodles. They had "thin" noodles...making me think they were like angel hair but those were the type I actually wanted. Darnit! Oh well. The wide...I mean flat noodles were nice and chewy. Very QQ! But too much noodle for me. The thickest I like is the linguine type and anything smaller than that. Yeah, I don't really like udon noodles because it's so thick. So if you're like me and you like smaller noodles, go with the "thin" noodles. They're not really thin, they're like linguine. All in all, it was pretty good. Not TOO expensive like people were saying. It was only $7 for my veggie noodles. Maybe they lowered their prices? I wouldn't know since this was my first time there.

Now, is this broth actually vegetarian? I'm not sure. I did ask the server and he said that it was. BUT at first he said the broth was stewed with bones and that you can't taste it. So I then asked for a vegetarian broth which I thought was the tomato. Then when my dish came out, there was just tomato sauce on top of the soup (because it was too late and the dish already made) and he told me to mix it and said that there was no meat in it. Hmmm....so I think they LIE and tell you it's vegetarian when it really isn't cuz you can't taste it anyway! But you know what...you can taste something that you normally don't taste if you just drink the broth and don't eat any food with it. In any case, I at least didn't get sick. Perhaps if I had asked for the vegetarian broth in the beginning, it would've been different. Oh well, there are other side dishes you can eat besides the noodles and perhaps I'll try those out if I go back next time.

If anyone has any info on their broths for vegetarians, please let me know! Maybe I just changed my order too late and should have said vegetarian broth in the beginning. Thanks!

Chef Hung Taiwanese Beef Noodle 洪師父牛肉麵
http://www.chefhungnoodle.com/eng/index.html
Diamond Jamboree Shopping Center
2710 Alton Parkway, Suite 117
Irvine, CA 92606

Pick Up Stix - Various Locations : Orange Peel Tofu

Let's face it. Chinese food isn't exactly healthy. Most everything is either stir-fried or fried. I mean sure you can make stir-fried healthy when you cook at home and control the amount of oil you use, but most restaurants and fast food places use a lot of oil to make their food taste greasily yummy. In any case, when I want to eat "bad" and "fast" Chinese food, I sometimes go to Pick Up Stix. I say sometimes because quality varies depending on location and the intangibles.

Orange Tofu with Fried Rice

Pick Up Stix is a good place to go for vegetarians because you can substitute any of their entrees with tofu. I have only gotten Orange Tofu because it's my favorite sauce and I don't know any other place that makes this tangy good sauce with tofu. Lazy Dog Cafe used to have decent tofu stir-fries...but they stopped putting the flour coating on the tofu before frying it and now it's just not as good. The Pick Up Stix Orange Tofu also has a lot more flavor compared to the one at Lazy Dog. This dish is not hot even though there are chili peppers in the dish. The peppers are whole and not cut, so the sauce is not blazing hot and spicy. There are also a ton of orange pieces in the sauce too (good orange flavor)...so be careful when eating. I usually pick the peppers and oranges out...then it's just tofu and water chestnuts. The picture above already has the oranges and chili peppers removed. You have either a choice of brown or white rice too, but I upgraded to their fried rice. Sometimes their fried rice is good and other times it's just okay. Recently their food has been greasily good. So if you are a vegetarian and have limited options, you can always go to Pick Up Stix and substitute tofu in any of their entrees.

Pick Up Stix
http://www.pickupstix.com/

Mitsuwa Marketplace - Costa Mesa, CA - Sky Express

It seems to defeat the purpose to go to Mitsuwa...known for Japanese items and food...and have Chinese food. But as a vegetarian...there really are no good options at the food court. You can go into the market and buy their prepackaged sushi (there are some vegetarian ones)....or you can go to Sky Express and have some Soy Sauce Noodles.

Soy Sauce Noodles from Sky Express in Mitsuwa

It's a very simple dish containing mostly thin egg noodles, bean sprouts, carrots, green onions, onions, and some cabbage.  While it's okay to eat once in a while...it's food court Chinese food so...not the best...but not the worst. Just as you'd expect for food court food.

Sky Express Soy Sauce Noodles, Egg Drop Soup, and Boba Milk Tea

It also comes with soup (egg drop) and I also got a boba milk tea. I'm not too sure what the broth is in the soup, but it didn't taste "meaty" so I drank it. Usually if there's a strong scent I do not drink it...but egg drop soup is usually "scentless" to me. Yes sometimes it is difficult to find food and you just go with your nose and tastes. I usually just ask if there's any meat in it. If they say no then I try it and when I can taste something funny, I spit it out. If I find out later that I ate something with meat juice in it, then I just won't get it again...but it's not like I intended to eat the contaminated food, so why worry so much? Simple as that. Now if someone (say a friend) intentionally lied to you to get you to eat something with meat in it...well they wouldn't be very good friends now would they? ;-)

Mitsuwa Marketplace
http://www.mitsuwa.com/tenant/eindex.html
Costa Mesa Store
665 Paularino Ave.
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
714-557-6699
Food places open daily from 11AM - 7:30PM

Capital Seafood Restaurant 金都 (jin1 du1) - Irvine, CA : Dim Sum

There's usually a lot to eat at dim sum if you're a meat eater, but for a vegetarian there's the usual fried desserts and steamed vegetables...or you can order off the menu. Here are a few things you can eat at Capital Seafood that are in the carts that they push around.

Bean Curd Roll

The skin is made out of beancurd sheet 腐皮 (fu3 pi2) or tofu skin. These sheets are obtained when you boil soy milk. There is a thin film that develops on the top...kind of like when you boil milk and let it cool. These films are removed and dried and turn into yellow sheets. They also can be sold fresh but I usually see them dry (and you have to soak it in water to make it soft again) or frozen here in the USA. Anyway it's a great alternative to wonton wrappers as the soy provides more nutrition than flour and water.

Vegetarian Dumplings

The steamed bean curd rolls and steamed vegetarian dumplings were very filling. I did share the bean curd rolls, but ate all the veggie dumplings myself. I thought the bean curd rolls were a bit salty...and the dumplings were just right.

Inside of vegetable dumpling and bean curd roll

Inside both items were mostly black wood ear 木耳 (mu4 er3) or cloud ear fungus in Wikipedia. It is a type of fungus known for its slightly crunchy texture no matter how long you cook it and is pretty much tasteless. This is often used in Asian cuisine. I like the slightly crunchy texture of wood ear.

Sweet Dessert Bun

I forgot what the inside of the sweet dessert bun was made of, but it's a sweet paste. Not red bean or taro...might have been lotus seed paste. I could only eat one...I was kind of getting full. They were just like any other dessert bun.

Baked Egg Tart

I saved room for an egg tart. Haven't had one of these in a while. This is also a dessert dish and it's basically egg custard in a tart. I took the remaining two buns and egg tarts home. Just these few dishes were quite filling. So if you wanna try decent dim sum in the Irvine area try this place out. They're also opening one up at the Irvine Spectrum in Summer 2011.

Capital Seafood Restaurant
http://www.capital-seafood.com/index2.php
Location this was eaten at:
Diamond Jamboree
2700 Alton Parkway #127
Irvine, CA 92606
(949)252-8188
Hours:
M-F 10:30AM - 10:00PM
Sat-Sun 9:00AM - 10:00PM

The Lazy Dog Cafe - Irvine, CA : Orange Peel Tofu w/ Brown Rice

Highly recommended for dog lovers, vegetarians, meat eaters...everyone.

Technically you can bring your dog to any restaurant and sit in the patio...but some people may not like dogs and give you the evil eye as you eat. At The Lazy Dog Cafe we sat on the patio where it seemed everyone had a dog with them. This was a very dog friendly place.

You can see the blur of my dog's tail wagging happily as she makes friends with the dog at the next table.

Orange Peel Tofu w/ brown rice

I chose a Wok Plate. You choose which type of "meat" and flavor you want. You can also have brown rice. Kudos for brown rice! There are still many places that do not offer brown rice so this was a welcome relief. The food was pretty good. The tofu was fried in a very light batter and the sauce wasn't overpowering...pretty light for fried food...and there's plenty of broccoli. I've only been here once but hopefully will go again to try some of their other foods. They have a little bit of everything. You can check out their menu online. They have several locations in Southern California and hours are posted on their website.

The Lazy Dog Cafe
http://www.lazydogcafe.com/