We went to Golden Era last night for dinner. I haven’t been there for a long time — for those of you who don’t know what Golden Era is, it is a vegetarian Chinese restaurant. The restaurant is run by a religious group of the Master Ching Hai (the leader) – there is a flatscreen TV playing the Master Ching Hai channel as well as books in a bunch of different languages up at the front for you to take and read.
Anyway, the food is good. I am a massive carnivore, and I honestly can’t complain about this food. I’ve eaten at alot of vegetarian restaurants, and I can tell you that the “meat” at Golden Era is the most “meat-like” out of all the different variations of seitan and tofu/soy products out there. The “beef” even has a stringy meaty texture, and the “chicken” is soft and tender and you can also see the “fibers”. The thing I hate about most vegetarian food is that I’m always left feeling an unfulfilled void after my meal – but my void is filled at Golden Era, especially with the fried stuff.
I started off with the steamed veggie bun. It’s pretty good, I usually get it every time I go there. The photo isn’t as good as the normal ones because I had my lens baby on my cam – wasn’t really planning on eating out so I didn’t have my “food lens” with me…
This steamed veggie bun is very good. The bun is soft and warm. It kind of looks uncooked when it arrives (as most steamed buns look)… it’s dough-y and the inside is stuffed with a bunch of veggies, including black beans, tomato chunks, corn, peppers, onions… it has a nice, mild vegetable flavor.
This is the Spicy Gourmet Chicken. I never had this dish before – I think it is new. I think it’s supposed to be the “General Tso’s” version minus the battered fried balls of chicken because it was both a little sweet and had a nice little spicy bite to it. I ordered brown rice with it but I didn’t eat much of it… the chicken was enough. It doesn’t come with sauce though so to me it’s hard for me to justify eating it with rice. It was good though, I would probably get it again.
Golden Era Vegetarian Restaurant
572 O’Farrell St.
(between Jones St & Leavenworth St)
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 673-3136
www.goldeneravegetarian.com