Kitchen Confoundential

I had a wonderful vegetarian meal at the Vegetarian Lifestyles restaurant near Westgate Mall today. This is the best Chinese vegetarian eatery in the world - the vegetables are crisp and colorful and the mock meat dishes are light and tasty. The people that run this restaurant, and the other two sister restaurants in Shanghai, do it because they have a mission - to show people that meat is not only unnecessary for health but for taste as well. It's also a relief to eat somewhere that can be trusted.

That can't be said for many eateries in China, especially one dumpling eatery in Beijing that hit the headlines today because a reporter for CCTV caught it serving dumplings filled with cardboard to unsuspecting customers. The whole thing was caught on video as the undercover reporter asked the boxer short-clad proprietor why his dumplings tasted like cardboard. "Because it is cardboard," the owner said in a momentary lapse. Then he explained that he soaked cardboard in caustic soda, chopped it up, added a pinch of MSG and a dash of "some fatty meat" and, wallah! Tasty "Pork" Buns in Caustic Sauce! Let this be a lesson. If the manager of the dumpling stall is walking around in nothing but boxer shorts check for soaking cardboard behind the counter.