Expats find and create vegan dining options in China

Kendra Schaefer, an expat and vegetarian living in Beijing, was once served a "vegetarian" soup with ham in it. The waitress thought the soup adhered to Schaefer's requests for food without meat because it didn't have the character "肉" in it.

Though it's easy to eat vegetarian food in Beijing, Schaefer says, it's extremely difficult for people who are new to China, largely because of language barriers.

"When you first arrive and don't have any familiarity with the cuisine, you're not sure what to order, you don't know which sauces and ingredients are made with meat and don't know how to ask, and even saying 'I'm vegetarian' won't necessarily get you a meat-free meal, so it feels difficult during that acclimation process," she says.

Mike Shaw, an expat who organizes vegan dinners through a group called Plant-based Beijing, says it's already difficult to navigate life as an expat. Finding vegan or vegetarian food can seem even more difficult, leaving expats with plant-based diets feeling isolated.

Knowing they have a place where they can eat is comforting for expats, Shaw says. Through the group's Vegan Outreach Dinners, the vegan and vegetarian community educates people on what plant-based diets are about. The dinners are also a way for restaurants to reach out and show people with plant-based diets that they want them to eat at their restaurants, Shaw says. For the first few dinners, Shaw contacted restaurants he knew to see if they were interested in participating. Now, restaurants reach out to him wanting to participate.

The first dinner had 35 guests attend. After that, every dinner has had 50 people. The participating restaurants usually give a 50-person limit, Shaw says.

He says the Vegan Outreach Dinners show chefs that it's easy to incorporate vegan options into their menus even though cooking vegan food might seem intimidating. Since the first dinner in February, all but one of the participating restaurants have added vegan options to their menus after hosting a dinner for the group.

Shaw says a lot of Chinese restaurants have vegan options and there are even entirely vegan Chinese restaurants, like his personal favorite, Vegetarian Tiger. However, he says Western restaurants in Beijing tend to have fewer vegan options because they catered to people who miss their favorite foods from home.

At first, mostly expats attended the Vegan Outreach Dinners, but more locals have started attending after hearing about it. Shaw says the group is working to create connections with the local vegan community.

"We want everybody to be able to take advantage of the opportunities for exploration that the dinner events provide and awareness of the vegan-friendly dining options that get created because of the events," Shaw says.

Brandon Trowbridge, an American expat and chef in Beijing, says though there isn't a super-high demand for vegan food in Beijing, more and more people are interested in adding more vegetables to their diets, even if they're not vegan.

"Even if there might not be a lot of vegan restaurants, there's a lot of vegan options for food," he says.

Simple dishes like noodles can easily be made into vegan dishes by using a different oil or making another adjustment, he says. When he prepares vegan food, he often modifies dishes for vegans by removing the sauces, such as fish-sauce commonly used in Korean dishes, and making the sauces from scratch. By using strategies like this, he makes dishes that vegans couldn't normally eat at other places into dishes they can eat.

He says if people know what to look for, there are many vegan options at restaurants. He suggests making a list of vegan foods for each cuisine before going to a restaurant. That way, vegans know what kind of food they can eat before they go.

A large majority of vegan options in Beijing are Chinese food, he says. He thinks the interest in vegan food is pretty equal between locals and expats, adding that interest will continue to grow as awareness and education of the health and environmental benefits of eating less meat increases.

For China Daily