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| New Age Vegetarian Cuisine at Kechara Oasis Posted: 08 Sep 2011 09:12 PM PDT  Every once in a while, I’d like to detox and clean my body off from meat. This is when a vegetarian meal comes to mind. As much as I enjoy the occasional vegetarian food, I find it hard to find those that are not overloaded with gluten or flour, in their effort of making vegetarian food look like meat. In the quest to search for nice vegetarian food, my colleagues and I ended up in Kechara Oasis restaurant one afternoon for lunch. The restaurant had a comfortable and cozy ambience, with statues of deities (Tibetan?) decorating the place, giving it a calming and soothing feeling.
Vegetarian skewers? We chose the set lunch for 10 persons that came with 8 courses including one dish of dessert. The first course was the Mandala of 5 Prosperity, a platter of 5 mini dishes including vegetarian skewers, deep-fried Vietnamese spring rolls, stir-fried artificial meat and walnuts. I found the skewers to be pretty tasty with each piece coated with a dark, sticky and slightly sweet sauce. I believe it was made from gluten or seitan, since I found it to have a chewy texture that was quite similar to meat. The Vietnamese spring rolls were especially crispy with fillings of mushroom in a savoury gravy.
Mandala of 5 Prosperity The second course was Yam Basket with Kong Po Chicken, which was, unfortunately, made from gluten again. The gravy was flavourful and slightly spicy, while the yam basket was fluffy with a crispy skin. But I did not want to overdose myself with another dish of gluten so I only had a piece of it to try.
Yam Basket with Kong Po Chicken The next dish of soup was not in our set menu, but came highly recommended by the waitress. The Kechara Treasure Pot was a pot of miso soup with shitake mushroom, carrot, romaine, broccoli and round momos. What are momos, you ask? These cute dumplings that looked like ‘Xiao Long Bao’ were wrapped with potatoes, vegetables, herbs and cheese within. I found the soup to be light and refreshing, with a pleasant mixture of flavours from the mushrooms and vegetables. I definitely could have more than a bowl of this!
Kechara Treasure Pot
Momo – potatoes, vegetables, herbs and cheese The next dish surprised us for it did not look vegetarian at all – Miso Cod Fish came in the unmistakable shape of a fish fillet, complete with the fish skin on the sides. Don’t be alarmed, for this dish was actually largely made from soya and tofu, resulting in the white colour and soft texture. Apart from its deceiving look, this was just a dish of beancurd soaked with miso soup. It turned out to be lightly flavoured bordering bland, but this was to be expected for a dish of just tofu I guess.
Miso Cod Fish My favourite dish of the day was, in fact, the Mushroom Kai Lan. Yes, this is what I would love from a vegetarian restaurant – nothing pretentious, but just delicious and authentic vegetables cooked in the most traditional manner. This was done perfectly with big and juicy mushrooms mixed with young and green kai lan. The burst of flavours in every bite of mushroom was simply the highlight of my meal.
Mushroom Kai Lan Another dish with vegetables was the Golden Pocket Broccoli, served with pieces of deep fried mini dumplings filled with what I thought was potatoes, vegetables and some herbs. I loved the taste of the gravy which complemented the broccoli very well, but I thought the fillings in the dumplings were a little too starchy.
Golden Pocket Broccoli
Golden pocket? Lotus Root with White Fungus was another of my favourite that day, with a combination of vegetables and nuts that made this a crunchy and enjoyable dish. I loved the addition of macadamia nuts that also gave it a nutty taste!
Lotus Root with White Fungus At this point, we were all full to the brim but we still had the dish of Longevity Noodles to go. Most of us only had half a bowl of this and had to pack half of it home. Nothing really impressive with this noodle but nothing to complain as well. It’s just at after so many dishes, I came to realize that most of their gravy tasted quite the same? Maybe it’s just me.
Longevity Noodles Finally, dessert was Longan Sea Coconut served icy cold. Totally loved longan for its sweet and juicy texture. Perfect as a finishing dish indeed.
Longan Sea Coconut
Dining environment at Kechara Oasis The cost of the set menu was RM388++ for 10 persons, while the cost of the soup was around ~RM40. To be honest, this was definitely not cheap considering it’s vegetarian. Some of the dishes were executed perfectly, while I still have my reservations over gluten-inspired meat-like food. Perhaps I might just go for a la carte order if I return next time.
Kechara Oasis Restaurant at Jaya One Kechara Oasis New Age Vegetarian Cuisine |
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