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Categories: Chinese, Vegetarian [Edit]
Neighborhood: Inner Sunset
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Still super duper! We were just at Enjoy tonight and I feel like a celebrity everytime I go there. My yelp review is quoted on the back of their new fancy menu(blush!). The new menu is great and had pretty color pics of most of the dishes. I still love love love this place.
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10/17/2006
I love this place. Everyone who works here is friendly and awesome. They remember me and my order… Read more »
I've been to Enjoy countless times. Somehow, the concept of vegetarian fake meat dishes never gets old for me. They're just kind of fun. Enjoy has a few things that are truly amazing, such as any dish containing "barbecued pork". The "fragrant crispy chicken", an appetizer, is the best fake meat I've ever had. (And as a vegetarian for over 10 years, I've tried almost everything. Corn dogs!). But, many of the dishes are hit-or-miss. While some taste great, others are strange or have little flavor. When trying something new here, you never really know what you're going to get, which is why I only give Enjoy 3 stars. They also recently raised their prices, which I'm not crazy about. But I keep going because I like an adventure. And the people who work there are really nice.
Both my boyfriend and I were extremely impressed with this place. From the quality of food to the genuine kindness of the staff (they brought the food to our car because we could not find a legal parking spot, and they did not want us to get a ticket). This is our new favorite spot to eat, and it is so much healthier than our recent foray into Hawaiian BBQ.
I tend to be a creature of habit, and stick with ordering a few known dishes in the restaurants I patronize, however when dining at Enjoy, I am excited to try new things each visit and have yet to be disappointed. Last night we ordered the Lemon chicken and eggplant with sea bass, both were excellent.
I am so glad we happened upon this place, and please believe we. will be back!
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I'm going to start off with what I don't like about Enjoy Vegetarian Restaurant with the hope that my review will catch the owner's eye and cause them to change what I see as the only drawback that prevents this restaurant from being a true San Francisco gem.
The complaint: THE LIGHTING!!! it is very very very BRIGHT inside this place. Even on a beautiful sunny day they have like 20 1000watt lights all at full blast. It is brighter inside this restaurant than it is outside. The only thing I can sort of compare this too is when you go to the optometrist to have an eye exam and they put the drops in your eyes and send you out with some flakey wrap around sunglasses. You go outside you are hit with the intense, unbearable light....that is sort of the affect you get inside here... I can only think they do this to wave off the appearance that it is a hole in the wall Chinese restaurant, which when driving by one might think, but it doesn't work because that is exactly what I did for years.
OK I know that was very whiney and probably think I'm one of those unhappy people who go around complaining about how people drive crazy and children making too much noise or the neighbor's dog and everything that approaches them, I'm not though. I just see this problem as intensely un-enjoyable...."oh there he goes again whah whah whah"
But that aside, let's get to the good: Enjoy Vegetarian is tucked away in a residential neighborhood that adds to its charm, it is sort of like going to someone's living room for dinner. They have a very extensive menu of faux meat dishes and vegetarian items that are absolutely delicious. To top it all off the people who work here are so tremendously nice. Just bring your darkest shaded sunglasses and wear them while eating vegetarian food inside the restaurant (you'll look cool, or maybe like a heroin addict).
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Typical weekday scenario with my roomie:
Me: What are you doing for dinner?
Katie (roommate): Oh I don't know, I don't have anything in the fridge.. Probably going to make some pasta.
Me: Really? I'm feeling lazy right now. Wanna get Enjoy take out?
This place is only 4 blocks away from my house. Guess this is why I always feel like getting Enjoy when I'm too lazy to make anything and a Trader Joe's frozen pizza isn't appealing to me. Since I'm an old hag wench now, I find myself to be a creature of habit. I get the same damn thing here every time: lettuce cups (mmmmmm), Mongolian beef (mmmm), and a side of brown rice. Now I have tried numerous things on the menu but the old lady in me keeps me from making them my mainstays. Don't be afraid to be more adventurous in your menu choices ...
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What's good about this restaurant:
1. food is great
2. inexpensive
3. healthy
4. good service
5. relatively easy street parking due to its low profile location
I doubt they serve any liquor or dessert, but I don't care. The food was great (We had eggplant and sea bass, won ton soup, bean curd rolls, and chicken and lettuce fried rice - they were all good. No kidding), and I am going back there again!
The only thing - they close at 9pm - a bit too early!
My friend practically had to hose me down and put me in a straight jacket to get me in here.
I NEED MEAT. If I go a few hours without some sort of meat in my tummy, I fall to the ground in convulsions!
I tell you what though....
This place can fake you out with their non-meat dishes. I loved the Mongolian beef, Eggplant in spicy chili sauce, and the Drumsticks. They even shape the drumsticks to look like chicken legs. Thanks for helping us visual eaters feel better about not consuming meat for one night.
Trust me, this place can bring a CARD-CARRYING CARNIVORE to her KNEES!
It did for me :o)
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I was really excited to try this place as it had gotten rave reviews on Yelp. However, the only thing we ordered that I liked was the sweet and sour chicken. The barbecue pork appetizer tasted like a lot of fake meat dishes of yore that I remember when fake meat was just emerging in popularity. The fried spring rolls were good, but I feel like I can get those anywhere. And the roast (I'm unsure of the dish's name) was just not very good.
I was eager to try this place as I haven't had Chinese food in a really long time (mostly due to the fact that as a non-meat eater I tend to wind up with a plate of broccoli for my meal), but I was pretty disappointed.
I'm not a vegetarian but on occasions I like to eat vegetarian food with the imitated meat and tofu. Having difficulty deciding what to eat for lunch, I decided to try out this place. Basically I ordered a dish to go with a box of rice and picked it up 10 minutes later. The dish I ordered was Black Pepper sauce with Steak Meat and Vegetables. The total bill came out to be $10.30...rather pricey for 'vegetarian' food but worth a try.
Now I got to say the food was pretty good. It was the right amount of salt and had just the right amount of flavor in it. They gave lots of green vegetables and had probably about 10 pieces of the steak meat. I'm not sure what the steak meat was made out of but I liked it.
So why did I give this place 3 stars instead of 4? Well, turns out that almost half of the steak meat they gave me was spoiled. Sad but true. =( I was eating my food and on my 2nd piece of steak meat I bit into it and it tasted pretty sour. At first I thought maybe it was supposed to be that way so I bit into another different piece which was sweet. Then I smelled the sour one again and it definately had a sour smell to it! Instead of wasting the food, I decided to try bits of each 'meat' to check if they were spoiled and turns out that almost half were somewhat sour. Other than that I had no other problems.
Don't know if they knew it was spoiled at all but considering I tried this place only once and haven't seen anyone else complain about spoiled 'meat' then I would try this place again.
Very good Dishes:
#90 Bean Curd Rolls with Vegetables stuffed with cabbage and
mushroom (every's fav)
#46 String Beans with veggie "beef" (made with black beans, wheat free?)
#53 Eggplant with veggie "sea bass", eggplant usually soak up oil
#63 Lotus Root, Lily Vegetables, Peas and Ginko Nut, ginko is good for the brain
#66 Stir Fry Mixed Green Vegetables (yau choy, shanghai bok), nice variety
#65 Steamed Chinese broccoli, my favorite greens, but might be boring for u
#102 Enoki Mushroom, Dried Mushroom, Bamboo Pith with
soft tofu (starchy sauce on the BLAND side) it's good if you like something different
#80 Kung Pao "chicken", best fake meat dish there, must be the sweetness
Average Dishes:
#114 Shanghai Rice Cake with napa cabbage, veggie "ham"
Once in a blue blue moon dish, it's too starchy and plain for some folks. $3 each:
Five Grain Chinese Tamales made with sweet white rice,
mung beans, brown, black, red rice, mushrooms, and veggie "chicken" wrapped in bamboo leaf (special order)
#31 Veggie Tri-style "chicken" w napa cabbage, If you are not afraid of FRIED fake meat the texture is good. It's a double whammy for me, (fried and fake meat) so I won't order this again:
#109 Singapore Style Chow Rice Vermicelli, too spicy for some
#92 Pai Pa Tofu Ball w/ Brocolli is not as crunchy as Shangrila
Dishes I didn't care for:
2 years ago, I ordered the family style pre-fixe meal, most of the dishes have fake meat in them. I am not a fan of fake meat, especially,
#21 Veggie meat ball soup
#25 Medicine Soup, but is good for ya
Hint:
The $7.50 Tue-Friday lunch is a bargain. You get large portions.
In summary, you can't go wrong if you order the dishes that's has a picture of it on the menu.
This report took me 3 weeks of research, hope you can benefit from it.
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I have been here a couple of times for take out and dine in and it is one of my favorite chinese vege places around. Great food, good selection, good service and prices are decent!!!
Definitely a must go for any vegetarian or even meat eater looking to try something different!
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One of my favorite restaurants. I just don't go there as often as I like because it's so out of the way for me and it's hard to find parking. It's all vegetarian Chinese food with mock meat dishes and veggie dishes. It's not at all expensive; it's family style but not as expensive as most family-style Chinese restaurants (that usually charge $15 per dish). I've eaten Chinese food all my life so I can kinda judge what's good and what's crap.
Found out today Enjoy Vegetarian Restaurant, is not vegetarian.
They serve chicken & lamb.
Change your name, it's misleading.
-2 Cool Yelp points for you
uhhhh edit: apparently the 'chicken' and 'lamb' are made from um soy? I was tricked. +1 for them, minus a bajillion cool points for me. ME = FAIL
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Yummy! Enjoy Vegetarian Restaurant is fabulous! They have a huge selection of Chinese dishes, classic and otherwise, all with vegetarian substitutes for the meat ingredients. The chicken nuggets are really great, and the mapo tofu was one of the best I've had, vegetarian or not. Oh, and the staff is really friendly and service is impressively fast. I'll definitely be back, hopefully with some of my vegetarian friends!
This review is done as a matter of defeating some prolonged proscritanation and is not a reactionary review that was posted before even finishing to digest the food. Also, I eat my share of burritos al pastor and I smother cold cereal with honey; this is a omniovore's opinion.
The food at Enjoy Vegetarian is exemplary of its culinary constraints and respectful to its Buddist tradition.
Enjoy Vegetarian is one of the few restaurants I frequent and it is a rare treasure to have in the Inner Sunset. The tranquil atmosphere of the establishment is as cozy as the paint scheme and the ambiance is devoid and absent of the loud, obnoxious sort who would commonly buy into the ethical menu at EV.
So, what's available? Why..everything. Fish, pork, steak, the usual suspects of vegetables, and then a cornucopia of yam leaves and Asian vegetables you probably wouldn't find at most Chinese restaurants that have been Americanized into MSG-intensity or non-MSG banality for the pallette.
Without a single pang of fear, order any item and be excited by the textures and flavors utilized in mushrooms, gluten, taro, tofu, and various roots to reinvent the dishes that are mundane and too easily ruined at buffet lines and in over-priced restaurants with sticky floors. The main entrees do not stuff you so much (nor coat your veins with oil to the degree) that you cannot consider the dessert menu; order the mung bean.
As far as entrees go: Sea Bass with Eggplant is king. Shark Fin soup is supberb, the brown rice is delicious, if needed; and always feel free to ask for suggestions about what is most fresh--the service is top rate (ask for Alice or Rachel) and the tea is bottomless.
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Went their last week for lunch with 7 others. I liked their spareribs dish, and lemon chicken were ok. Overall the restaurant is pretty clean and the waitress is nice. But i don't think i enjoy the food as much. In general it is a bit "tasteless". Especially the singapore noodle we ordered. I have tried several other veggie restaurants in the city, and think i liked those much better. I am not buddhism, but i guess according to the strict buddhism theory, vegetarian food should be more "clean/pure" , not allowed to have for example, onion and garlic, etc. Basically anything potentially trigs sense of "impurity" should not be included in the food. In that term, i guess this "tasteless" fits more to the culture.
Wonderful place. I have little experience with vegetarian restaurant or even food, but from what I know the food is great! The lemon chicken was bomb, it actually resembled the texture of real chicken, great stuff. I'm definitely coming back. It was cheap and fast.
This is the best vegetarian Chinese good i have ever had. Even though the chicken nuggets are Chinese i really liked him. The fired rice tasted just like fired rice, lol, but the only difference is that its is more healthy.
The service was nice and friendly. Plus the prices are very affordable. Should definitively come here for good vegetarian Chinese food.
This is as good as Chinese Vegetarian food gets in the Bay Area. I've been to Golden Lotus and Long Life Vegi in Berkeley among other places (which I also love), but this place stands out because it is way less greasy, food comes out very fast, and it's just freakin delicious. Black pepper steak and chicken nuggets are my faves. The only drawback is that they've raised their prices lately (now dishes are mostly in the 7.95-8.95 range) - but still reasonable.
i like Enjoy! let's face it, I love meat. but sometimes you just need a nice healthy break. the folks at Enjoy can satisfy this quite nicely. and, if you are really craving meat, you can get some fake meat! hah, honestly i try to stay away from the fake meat (makes me feel a little weird) and go for the veggies, but i must say the fake ham bits are really hammy. we have a running joke about the bean curd sheet "wow that's some good sheet" "would you like some more sheet my dear"
ha. ha. ha....
hm, not really that cheap for chinese food, but i will still come back.
Must try: spinach fried rice (with toasted pine nuts)
Taste soo good almost make me eat the plate hehehe..
Don't forget to order the fried rice with pine nut and spinach!
yummm
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This place has quickly become one of my faves. Their knack for creating tasty meat-like meals which have no actual meat in them is a pretty good trick. Eaten here three times, walked away smilin' every time. They have a gigantasaurus menu, and everything I've had has been good. The decor isn't anything to write home about, but it's pretty typical for a Chinese restaurant, I think. If the owner is going to only concentrate on one thing, you want it to be the food. They've definitely done that here. Also, it's not in the heart of the Inner Sunset, so parking isn't quite as bad as it might be elsewhere.
The staff is very nice, and the service was fast (though they forgot our rice and had to be reminded 5 minutes later). Also, the lettuce wraps were wonderful.
Overall, though, this place was rather disappointing. I really, really wanted to like it, but it was expensive for what it was, and the fake meat was...weird. The small appetizer platter was attractive, but one of the imitation meats on there was basically just slivered tofu, and 1 tasted quite chemical-y. The small hot and sour soup was almost great, but had tooooo much pepper. The lemon chicken was a distracting neon color, and was really tough to chew, though the flavor was good. Also, with an 18% tip, it was $50, which is simply far too expensive for the experience and quality we got--at many other places in the Sunset, I can get the same amount and variety of vegan Chinese food at much better quality for $35-$40.
Still, many people love this place, so I may give it another shot.
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The food here is truly disgusting.
I can only describe the taste of their ubiquitous gluten meat as "musty." It was so bad that we couldn't finish our food and threw it out when we got home.
This restaurant totally fails for me because it interprets vegetarian cuisine as "lack of meat" and not "full of vegetables/grain/nuts oils" (the best part!). The result is that the--really bad!--gluten meat dominates the menu.
Sorry, as a non-animal-product-eater, I am not upset by the absence of "Lemon Chicken" on the menu. So, please don't try to force it to be there and maybe focus on a "Lemon Vegetable-something" instead.
(I swear, I'm not insane! I can't believe I am JUST one of a couple people who find this totally unpalatable--I am totally not a picky eater, either! ...Wow.... )
Kind people work here, by the way. Service is excellent.
This is a bright and friendly restaurant in a neighborhood setting. As a new vegetarian I may not yet be used to fake meat! So please accept this review as such. My friend (who is not a veggie) liked this place better than I did.
I thought the chicken drumsticks, recommended by the server, were kind of weird and stringy. The sauce was ordinary sweet and sour. The ribs with diakon were actually amazing fake meat, but the sauce was kind of strange and not to my taste. Some of the problem may be that no onion and garlic is used (not favored by Buddhists who feel it interferes with meditation).
We very much liked the eggplant and tofu, and adored the rice with spinach and pine nuts. That rice was a ten. Thanks, Elsa.
I will be back and will try other choices on the menu. More later.
Our favorite vegetarian restaurant close to where I live. It's getting so crowded especially on the 1st and 15th Chinese lunar calendar year. Long story short, these dates are specially reserved for practitioners of Buddhism to attain enlightenment by not eating meat thus not killing animals. Hope that enlightens some of you now. Sorry for lack of information.
So, this place has really good choices for vegans out there. Just been there today and enjoyed eating the curry eggplant with pumpkin. It's really good albeit a bit spicy for my taste. We also had sharks fin soup (of course it's not real) which tasted quite delightful and the pretty bland tomatoes beef noodle.
Definitely going back for more. The only con is the wait can be pretty awful since it's just a small premise with around 10 tables. If you can wait 20-30 minutes, this vegetarian restaurant is the place for you. Oh, the folks are friendly too.
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Looking for parking on a foggy Inner Sunset evening under the wet and billowy blanket of Mt. Sutro fog, we stumbled across this place. Enjoy Vegetarian Restaurant is an outpost of warm welcoming staff and tasty, fast Chinese cuisine. All your favorites are here. Sesame chicken, broccoli beef, General Tsao's Chicken. And all vegetarian! Even vegans can happily shop the menu without fear.
Though they were closing in under 10 minutes, they sat us and after we ordered, whipped up our meal in no time. Two heaping dishes, one piled with steaming taro root wedges and "chicken" cubes bathed in a thick sweet coconut sauce. The other a riot of "beef" and vegetables. Tea and a steaming bowl of rice on the side. For desert they brought out a hot soup of mango with clumps of translucent mushrooms floating in it. There is no better cure for the fog than a Chinese compote, let me tell you.
So, dig in.
The point of a vegetarian restaurant is vegetables, right? This place tries to pretend it's not a vegetarian restaurant by specializing in fake meat of textured soy protein.
I am not a vegetarian, but my son's are. I enjoy vegetables and I have no problem with meat-less meals. The fake meat at Enjoy runs from good to weird and the "real" vegetable dishes are just OK. The vegetable dishes at most regular Chinese restaurants are better than they are at Enjoy.
Overall, Enjoy was a real disappointment after reading the reviews here.
BTW, I did not take off a star for the aging hippie at he next table who tried to tell us what to order. If this were an episode of "Taxi" he would be Reverend Jim.
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Everyone is super nice and personable, HUGE selection of food and all super tastey!
Just discovered their website: http://www.enjoyveggie...
enjoy! lol
The dishes, their favors, and texture are pretty varied as far as Chinese vegetarian dishes are concerned. The ingredients seems really healthy. The services are great.
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The best fried fake chicken ever. I love discovering fun places in the neighborhood. Rachel C and I ate like majesty and the whole thing was 30 (fake) bones out the door. The staff is friendly and their recommendations were perfect. I can't wait to go back!
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this is the best vegeterian place I've been in the bay area. you can tell these people are really proud of their food.
not all dishes are good though. my favorite is the pork kidneys. the texture is exactly the same as the real ones.
the best vegetarian cuisines i have ever had. after dinner, the complimentary dessert was the white fungus with papaya syrup. it was kinda sweet, but going down my sore throat felt so good.
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There are generally two kinds of vegetarians: the ones who really miss eating meat and go out of their way to find every sort of meat substitute, and the ones who disdain the very idea of meat and so find things that look or have names similar to meat unappetizing. I'm not really in the first camp, but I'm also not an extremist/purist. That's why I like Enjoy so much.
If you're in the second camp, you will hate this place. Everything is imitation something or other. Some of it is pretty accurate, taste-wise; much of it doesn't taste like what it's imitating but is nevertheless really good.
Non-vegetarians tend to like these kinds of places because they don't like everything to be called tofu this or tofu that. Every omnivore I've brought here has really liked the food.
I just like being able to order anything on a humongous menu.
The place is too bright, and the colors on the inside make you think you got lost in some strange ice-cream parlor/funhouse dimension, but otherwise, or maybe because of that, this place is a worthwhile experience.
I really wish it was still called Hulu House, however. How cool is that name?
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AN EXCELLENT PARTY TRICK.
I say this because this restaurant almost convinved me that what they were serving was meat.
I'm not a vegetarian, and my rating is not based on other vegetarian spots. It's based on my dining experience itself. The Kung Pao Chicken and the Eggplant & Tofu in Basil was so good, even my carnivore boyfriend gave it kudos.
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Cant stay away from the Mongolian'Beef'.
It's hard finding a decent Chinese vegetarian restaurant around San Francisco, and this one definitely provides a good variety of choices. Spaces can be cramped, and often gatherings of people talk really loud. Last time I went here, we had to pull out the table in order to leave. The main waitress is affable and patient, and also gives you good suggestions for first-timers eating Asian style dishes.
Enjoy has the best meat substitute offerings anywhere in town. Although I appreciate the "meat" that is served just as tasty as any real carcass, Enjoy does vegetables superbly. I ordered the simple vegetable deluxe that was simple, clean, fresh, and filling. My friend ordered the spareribs. It tasted like spareribs, sort of looked like spareribs, but it didn't give you the sparerib sticky fingers nor that creepy day after feel.
Try the "Medicine Soup." It's uh, well, uh...different.
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ENJOY - a hidden gem in San Francisco.
When my sister told me about this place, I immediately said, "no way!" The reason for this answer is because a couple of years ago, I've tried a restaurant located at the exact same location she mentioned.
She raved about this place. Since I have to be on a be a vegetarian diet twice a month, I'm always searching for good vegetarians around the neighborhood. I decided to give this place a second chance. I'm glad I did because the restaurant has changed ownership! She's right, it is superb!
What I liked about this place: food is great. We tried the shark fin soup (tastes better with vinegar) and Bean curd rolls. Because I have two little boys, I ordered the fried drumsticks, and shanghai rice cakes. Everyone, including my boys loved all the dishes! The service is great, friendly and patient waitresses.
What I don't like about this place: parking. It's nestled in a residential area, so hard to find parking, especially on weekends. Only one large table, a tight fit if you have a big group.
I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who's looking for a great vegetarian restaurant.
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This is my favorite vegetarian restaurant in the city! I love this place. Every dish I've tried is great. The service is good and they are really friendly.
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