Ling Zhi - Food for the Vegetarian

Buffets, buffets, buffets. Buffets are common, but hey, vegetarian buffet is smth new to me.

Having tried Lao Beijing by Tung Lok w L and have a good dining experience, I obviously jumped at the chance of trying another new restaurant by Tung Lok - Lingzhi vegetarian, since both mummy and grandmother is on vegetarian diet that day.

I know, I know. You're being turned off by the thought of greens in trays waiting for you to eat them, no meat, no nothing, just vegetables and vegetables. This is where you are wrong. Because being a vegetarian doesn't mean there is nothing other than green leafy vegetables. There's delicious mock meat (which I suggest for people who are on a diet, to steer clear away from them since they are made up of flour), and desserts!

I believe a pleasant dining experience comprises of good food + good service. But unfortunately, this place doesn't provide any resemblance of reasonable service. Despite having made reservations, the waitress at the reception refused to let us in reason being that our seats are still currently occupied by the current customers. Why couldn't they let us have another table which is obviously unoccupied, and not reserved? As long as you explain it to us calmly, I'm sure we'll understand what is going on. After all, my family are very harmonious people.

Add in a small section of steamed dimsum and two pots of desserts, and basically you'll have the whole selection of food for the buffet itself. But of coruse, bearing in mind that this is just a hi-tea buffet, one can't expect much from it isn't it?

Fried beehoon and noodles are really tasty and not too oily. They went very well with the curry served as gravy. Lip-smacking combination, I went back for seconds.

Mock Shark Fin Soup

My all-time favourite dish. Perhaps I have held expectations that is too high for this dish, I was utterly disappointed. Not that it was bad of course, but it tasted a lot better with loads of pepper and vinegar.

Here are some of the steamed dimsum they provided. Not all impressed though.

The steamed mock char siew bun were fluffly, light, and tasty. Both my grandmother and daddy were full of praises for it.

These are bad. The skin is too thick for all our liking. For perfect steamed dimsum, the skin should be thin and light. When I sank my teeth into this little pouches of delicate looking dimsum, I thought I was eating into a slab of tough dough. Enough said.

This is so good. Lip-smacking, finger-licking good, and everything nice. But this may be a biased opinion because I've a soft spot for Lotus Paste. I had 3 trays of these, each tray consisting of 2. Everything with Lotus Paste tastes awesome. I can just survive on Lotus Paste alone daily. But okay, from an unbiased point of view, this isn't well done. The whole bun is hard and tough, the skin were (as usual) hard and thick too.

This is...interesting. For me, this doesn't taste right at all. Weird combination, or maybe I just dont fancy this.

Dessert time!

Walnut Cream

Not too sweet, perfect for the eldery or if you dont have a sweet tooth.

Chilled Mango Juice with Sago

This will make it up to people with sweet tooth. Chilled and sweet, the way I like my desserts to be. I had to go for seconds even though I was stuffed.

The food isn't lousy, but definitely not tasty enough to attract me back for another trip. And of course, the service was a huge turn-off. $113 for 6, which even out to be $18.80 for each person, I can't complain much about the variety of food, can I?

Lingzhi Vegetarian Restaurant by Tung Lok (Novena Square outlet)

238 Thomson Road

#03-09 Velocity @ Novena Square

Singapore 307683

Tel: +65 6538 2992

Opening Hours :
Mondays - Fridays
Lunch : 11:30am - 3:00pm
Dinner : 6:00pm - 10:00pm

Saturdays, Sundays and Public Holidays
Lunch : 11:00am - 3:00pm
Hi-Tea : 3:00pm – 5:00pm
Dinner : 6:00 - 10:00pm