A few weekends ago I went to Pure Lotus with my friends Tavey and Melissa. Melissa is an American who has been studying in Beijing for the past year. She's mostly a vegetarian and considers this place to be her favorite restaurant in the city. There are three locations, I can't remember which one we went to.
Pure Lotus serves
Buddhist cuisine, so not only is it vegetarian but they also do not use any "potent" ingredients like scallions or garlic. I'm a huge fan of Buddhist vegetarian cuisine -- though I'm a proud omnivore -- so I was very eager to dine there, especially since this particular subset of Chinese cuisine is nigh impossible to find in the United States. My previous experience with Buddhist cuisine was in 2000 at a restaurant in Xi'an inside a Buddhist temple, so I was expecting something similarly rustic and traditional. To my (welcome) surprise Pure Lotus puts a decidedly modern twist on this ancient culinary tradition.
This "modern-ness" can be seen not only in the food but also in its decor...
Main dining room. The beads may look a little tacky by Western standards but I think work well here.
The artwork is changed on a regular basis.
Private dining room. Pretty, but the acoustics are terrible.
Even the dinnerware is avant garde.
I didn't get a chance to photograph the menu but the names for dishes are even longer and more poetic than Chinese dishes already are. I'm talking like eight characters long, e.g. "The chicken that drowns in sorrow receives mercy from heaven." I made that one up but they're all something along those lines.
Therapeutic fruit drinks. The white is coconut milk, the red is I think radish, the orange is carrot.
Shark. But remember everything here is vegetarian so it's an imitation.
A bite taken out of the shark so you can see that the texture is nearly identical to the real thing. Also, sausage.
Roasted duck. Notice how the skin even has "goosebumps" from where the feathers would've been plucked.
Pork short-ribs, the bones are made of sugar cane. To the side, water chestnuts.
Steamed chicken.
Braised pork stew.
Taro root and tapioca soup. This is a sweet dessert item.
Fried coconut milk. I'm not sure how this is made but I'm guessing the coconut milk is frozen, breaded and then fried.
Watermelon cubes on dry ice. The watermelon was not very fresh but it was complimentary and the dry ice was quite impressive.
To those vegetarians not familiar with Buddhist imitation cuisine, To-furkey and Boca Burgers probably come to mind, but this is worlds better. To me, To-furkey is nearly inedible while I actually prefer some of these Buddhist imitation dishes to the real thing: that's how much better the Buddhist dishes are to the vegetarian imitation foods that are available in the West.
The dishes at Pure Lotus were all superb, the shark being my favorite. Some, like the roasted duck and steamed chicken, were not as well executed as I've had in Xi'an. Others, such as the pork short-ribs and shark, were very innovative and one would not expect to find those dishes in more traditional restaurants. The bill came to RMB 175 (USD 22) per person, which is quite expensive for Beijing but an absolute steal by US standards.
I haven't dined at El Bulli or anything of that caliber but short of that, this dinner at Pure Lotus I must say was the most innovative meal I've had in at least a year. It is very heartening to see something as traditional and unique to China as Buddhist cuisine to be updated to modern standards. Pure Lotus is evidence that the future of Chinese cuisine in the face of increasing Westernization is bright indeed.<IBF>
