Bamboo Garden
$ - inexpensive
Chinese
Chinese, faux meats
Vegan Chinese cuisine. Lots of faux meat dishes.
Added by Lindsay on Sep 23 03 (updated Jul 29 04)
Reviews
I recently visited Seattle and stayed near Bamboo Garden. I'm not a big fan of Chinese food (preferring Thai or Vietnamese), but we had to try it. Service was quick and friendly and there were soooo many choices! My husband and I had 2 dishes (sorry I cannot remember which), ordered spicy. While both were delicious, only one was spicy. But I was not disappointed, the tofu was well prepared and the vegetables fresh. I still prefer Thai food, but this is a very good restaurant offering many more options for the veg*n. If you like Chinese food, this is not to be missed!
Great that it is all vegan but some of the dishes I've had lack in flavor. Everything I've had here has been good or better. Never a bad dish. Just never a great one either.
Excellent location; I think it's the closest vegan/vegetarian restaurant to downtown Seattle. The service is quick and the dishes are reasonably priced. I ate there alone on my travels and couldn't decide on any of the 160+ vegan options, so I settled on combination 4, which allowed me to sample four entres and two appetizers. The corn soup was excellent, as were the chicken nuggets (which I couldn't believe weren't real). The food here is great. on top of that, because i ordered it alone I was only charged $13.50 (without tax) for the equivalent of six orders. There was so much, I delightfully packed with me 1/3 of my meal. i highly recommend.
The restaurant is in a great location if you are coming into Seattle for a day or night on the town in Seattle Center. There is a really interesting story on the cover of the menu that talks about how a Chinese emperor really enjoyed eating all kinds of fancy foods, and when all his subjects became vegetarian buddhists they recreated his favorite foods with faux meats and animal free sauces. The food here is truly fit for an emperor! My family's favorites are Vegetables in Golden Pond (yellow curry) and Mandarin Fried "Chicken." The only thing not vegan here is the fortune cookie. It has egg in it.
I LOVE the fake chicken. I have moved away from Seattle, but whenever I visit, I make a point of stopping by for some. I'm not usually into fake meat, but the fake chicken at Bamboo Garden is beyond compare.
I must also recommend my favorite dish, vegetable treasure on golden pond, which is a baked curry with potato, eggplant, broccoli and carrot.