Pasteur
$ - inexpensive
Chinese, Vietnamese
Vietnamese and Chinese with veg options
This restaurant was once a 100% veg place called Happy Buddha. Now they serve non-vegetarian food, but they still have a wide selection of vegetarian options.
(Chinatown stop/Orange Line, Boylston St. stop/Green Line)
- Quiet
Added by Thomas J Mather on Nov 20 05 (updated Apr 6 07)
Reviews
Happy Buddha's menu makes extensive use of meat substitutes in usually tasty vegetarian versions of typical Chinese and Vietnamese items, with some more unusual offerings. Recently renovated, it is clean and pleasant, although not fancy, and the service is typically good. Their lunch menu is reasonably priced and fairly quickly served. My one complaint is that the menu provides only limited descriptions of offerings, which can lead to surprises. However, I recommend Happy Buddha.
Happy Buddha Restaurant is no longer all-vegan, which is quite a disappointment.
I think they were busy the first few weeks they went "vegetarian included" (as in India there are both "pure vegan" and "veg/nonveg" restaurants), but I'm not sure their business decision was sustained.
I think their main problem in keeping business is that they lodged themselves in the same building as Buddha's Delight, a longstanding all-vegan restaurants, offering a neater and more English-speaker-friendly ambience. But the folks upstairs - Buddha's Delight - are truly friendly, too, though their English isn't "broadcast quality".
We used to take the Vegetarian Meetups (http://Vegetarian.Meetup.com/27) there each month; we moved up to Buddha's Delight after Happy Buddha Restaurant's decision to go "Veg/Nonveg" on us, and the 2nd floor is quieter.
No doubt, however, that Happy Buddha is far cleaner and better looking, while the more spacious Buddha's Delight upstairs is far quieter and always seems to have an evidently vegetarian (likely vegan) crowd.