The Angel on my right says she is innocent and pure. The Devil on the left rebuts, she is gullible and inexperience. A simple play of words, show the different perception of people. The same word could mean two totally different thing. Naive, is all about the absence of artificiality, in a good way.

Rather than a vegetarian restaurant, the owners of Naive know exactly how human perception is, most people tend to associate vegetarian with distasteful food, so lets just call them the first meatless restaurant.

Tofu is always a staple in the meatless cateogry, and it was no surprise we had it for the Golden Oats ($8.80). Essentially crispy deep fried soft golden tofu with oats and fragrant leaves. I didn’t get to try much of this, but it was a good rendition of the cereal prawn. The tofu was a fitting replacement with its crispy texture and soft interior going well with the oats.

Not the best in terms of the looks department, but the Penang Rendang ($9.80) was better than expected. Pan-fried mushroom on bed of greens. Red, hot, and spicy.

When red riding hood ($7.80) meets the big bad wolf. How apt. It was almost like the real deal. Imagine sweet and crispy,and instead of pork you get beancurd. Sweet & sour pork wannabe? This is even better than some of the ones I had before.

The ladies man. He have all sorts of tricks in his bag, and can please all of you. Battered organic oyster mushroom ($9.80). If you have been avoiding fried food for a while now, because of the double damage; unhealthy fried food and too much meat. This is the one for you.

Tangy and refreshing. The mango tofu cake ($12.80) was all about that. Slightly sweet, slightly sour. Crispy skin, soft body. Talk about contrast.

With a cheesy tag line like mega in taste, and mini in size, the Mega mini mushroom ($10.80). While I ain’t a big fan of Sze Chuan cuisine, one bite was enough to tell me the flavourful spicy szechuan sauce.

Enchanted forest ($12.80). Indeed, I was smitten by her charming ways, her strong perfume smell of wolfberry, her strong and wilful texture.

From the braise, you would certainly associate it with cooking for many hours. Yes, but somehow for monkeyhead mushrooms, it does not turn soft. We were expecting the meat-lookalike to be tender, but instead it was still rather tough in texture. Heartwarmer ($13.80)

I always love to order garlic rice when I frequent Japanese restaurants. They are so oh-so good! And I think the same could be for Naive, their Oliver twist ($3.80). Instead of the Japanese pearl rice, we have the fragrant Thai rice, with a olive twist. And I agreed, so good it can be eaten on its own.

Naive promises to offer healthy food without compromising on taste. And I will like to say they did it. I never knew vegetarian, or rather, meatless could taste so good. However, prices are rather steep given the small portions. And their main courses are all monkeyhead mushrooms.

I’ll like to thank Hungrygowhere.com for inviting me to the food tasting session. And to Naive’s owner Phyllis for hosting and educating us for the healthy yet delicious food.

Naive
99 East Coast Road
Tel: 6348 0668
Website here

“Do you take him as your husband, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow… With that I proclaimed you as husband and wife!”

The wedding bell struck, and the loving couple proceed on happily with their dinner celebration. Or so they thought. Picture this, the wedding ballroom was full of family, relatives and friends. All around was smiling faces. Then came the horror. Dead sharks, plenty of them with blood stains still fresh from the wounds, laying everywhere, on the table, on the floor, on the stage.

100 million sharks are killed a year, 63 million for their fins alone. Yes, you, you, you and you. All of us are guilty of being a murderer. And the real cause for their destruction, the demand for shark fins, a Chinese delicacy, always present during weddings and festive occasions.

Loveshark.sg is a local organisation set up to raise public awareness about sharks and the practices threatening their survival in the wild, with the simple ‘No Shark Fin‘ pledge. Alternatives to shark fin soup includes fish maw soup, or the vegetarian shark fin soup which we had at Lotus vegetarian restaurant for the loveshark media dinner.

We started off our meal with the prosperity yu sheng. A messy affair it was, scrambling to take photographs, while holding the chopsticks to stir for our first lo-hei of 2009. And of course, the auspicious greetings wishing one another, good health and fortune.

So green, green. So bright green, green. The Caltrops with hairy mushroom represents all of the superficial view of greens equal vegetarian. Caltrops and water chestnuts are cousins, while i’m not a fan of neither, i agreed that the caltrops were full of crunch, and i enjoyed the hairy mushroom, or better known as monkey-head mushroom.

The element of fire, fiery red. All of us mistook it for red chili where it’s actually red bell pepper. The spicy pan-fried vegetarian fish was actually bean curd in disguise. The meticulous wrapping of the seaweed around to make the dish bearing a closer resemblance impressed.

The most creative award for the night goes to the fresh mushroom with asparagus. Serving in the form of a ice cream cone, several different types of mushrooms were stuffed inside, and voila!

The fruity almond rolls were my personal favourite of the 9 course vegetarian meal. The aroma of the jack fruit and banana held within the almond rolls escaped to our nose. Fried crispy outside, juicy and fruitful inside. Also there’s the Otak-pretender which came along too.

The apparent crowd favourite, stewed chestnuts with golden fungus. The bite of the golden fungus, was chewy and there’s also the hairy mushroom here.

Capturing the essence without using any real meat, that’s what all vegetarian dishes strived to do. I thought the veg meat managed to do just that. The light sauce for the meat, with the cucumbers and tomatoes, dipped in the famous chicken rice chilli.

Welcome to Malacca! The signature chicken rice balls, that originated from the Malaysian state. Except this was rice ball without using any chicken oil in the cooking process.

The legendary Tian Shan Xue Lian right before our eyes. For centuries, pugilists had been vying for the magical healing medicine. Well of course, this wasn’t the real Tian Shan Xue lian, with osmanthus in the pudding.

The 9 course set dinner served 10 people at $358++, from Lotus Vegetarian restaurant. This is a food tasting session organised by loveshark.sg, so i’ll like to thank Jaki for inviting me, to have the chance with meeting the nice people from their various organisations, and of course, the food bloggers whom I’ve read their blogs for a long time, but this being the first time i saw them in person. Support Loveshark.sg! Say no to Shark Fin!

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Lotus Vegetarian restaurant
Quality hotel level 2
201 Balestier road