Westin Chosun’s Hong Yuan to develop vegetarian menus
By Kim Rahn
Some people are vegetarians, either because they don’t want to support animals being killed for food, or because they want to get in shape, or because they are influenced by philosophy in a specific religion that recommends limiting meat eating.
In Korea, a growing number of people are becoming interested in vegetarian food because of the trend among some celebrities who express a preference for it. It is said about 100 vegetarian restaurants currently operate in Seoul, and more and more cafeterias for offices or schools offer vegetarian corners.
Hotels are no exception. Westin Chosun Seoul’s Chinese restaurant, Hong Yuan, is preparing vegetarian menus, with a Taiwanese chef’s visit as a momentum.
The restaurant held a Taiwanese Vegetarian Gala Dinner on June 21 and 22 with Li Junxian, head chef of Taipei’s acclaimed vegetarian restaurant Fu Shan.
Of the nine-course meal, some looked just the same to well-known Chinese dishes using meat or seafood. But the ingredients were all made with vegetables, mimicking the shapes and textures of the original ingredients: an abalone made of beans and potatoes; vegetarian Buddha-jumps-over-the-wall using various kinds of mushroom, chestnut and vegetable worms; sea cucumber Dongporou made from devil’s tongue jelly; steak made of tofu; and a bird’s nest soup made of radish and white tree ear.
“In developing vegetarian food, I try to keep the flavor of traditional Chinese foods and traditional cooking methods. But I apply Western and Japanese styles in presentation,” Li said in an interview with The Korea Times.
He also focuses on the texture of foods, because vegetables are less chewy than meat. The 33-year-old said it is easy for vegetarians to become deficient in protein and iron, which meat is rich in. “To supplement protein, I always put a dish using beans when planning a menu. For iron, I often use beet,” he said.
Li said many Taiwanese are vegetarian: about 15 percent of the population doesn’t eat meat because of the influence of religions such as Buddhism or Taoism, while many others opt for the eating habit for health or environment protection reasons. “These days it is a fad to have only vegetables for three to four days a week and to have meats for the remaining days. We see three to four vegetarian restaurants on one street, and ordinary restaurants also have a vegetarian menu.”
Hong Yuan is planning to follow suit by developing a vegetarian menu.
Among Li’s dishes at the gala dinner, guests praised the design of the devil’s tongue jelly sea cucumber and said the tofu steak tasted just like a beef steak.
The restaurant will have a set menu including the two dishes, along with its already famous handmade tofu dishes. The candidate dishes are a cold Pyeong-ga-style tofu appetizer which originated from the Chinese Pyeong family’s tofu-making recipes; Hong Yuan special tofu which is fried and topped with clam sauce; and Haengin tofu, a sweet dessert tofu topped with fruit that resembles pudding in texture.
For inquires, call Hong Yuan at 02-317-0494.