Greenland Vegetarian Restaurant

This place is recommended for... Waiting...

I'm here on a sat night at 8.30pm. Restaurant is 3/4 filled but half the tables are waiting for food. The menu has fancy names of the dishes but no description - Bodhi Tofu?! Jade Monkey Head?! I tried to ask but the waitresses seems to be pissed from answering the same questions over and over.

Next table of aunties' faces are very very black... "We just want to pay and go la!!!"... Don't know how long they have waited... One dish came and they are eating... Faces still very black.

Recommended dishes... Don't know yet... It's going to be a long long dinner...

In my opinion, this restaurant is good. It is located along Upper Serangoon Road (you can easily see it along the main road) and serves vegetarian dishes at rather reasonable prices.

I went there on 13 Feb 10' for my reunion dinner. We made a reservation so there was no problem in getting a table. Although it was rather large in space area, it was really crowded and the table beside ours could not get out of their seats without hitting my chair. It has a typical chinese restaurant decoration (with paintings and scrolls) which gives it a nice ambience.

The dishes were tasty, especially the vegetables in (vegetarian, of course!) oyster sauce. There was one dish that my family really enjoyed, it's the 一帆风顺 which is a variety of fried things (resembling nuggets) and super-mini dumplings served in a 'boat'. There were a few dishes which were rather salty though, especially the 'meat' in char siew sauce. We are all big-eaters, so we ordered all the dishes in the largest size, thus the price.

The service was not excellent, but tolerable. My family just helped ourselves to the tea kettle because we could not get the waiter to come over. We did wait for a while before our food was served but I guess that's just the way it is on extremely busy days like CNY's eve.

(I remember my uncle saying that we should not order the tofu because it's a 'cheap' food. I was thinking to myself: Wait, we're in a vegetarian restaurant, most of the things we'll be eating is either flour or beans, isn't it 'cheap' food too? If that's the case, then you might as well don't eat anything here. But I was reminded to be polite, so I just smiled.)

Having passed by this place umpteen times and always full during weekends, I decided to give this a try. My mum also commented that this restaurant was well received from our already deceased grandparents.

We ordered:

- Deep fried Jing Zhen Gu – A sweet honey sauce dress the mushroom which made this dish a must try.

- Bamboo Fungus Soup – An appetizing soup, it was rich with flavours. However, when it is cold, the soup became very peppery.

- Stir-Fried Kang Kong – It lacks a crucial taste which makes this dish not recommended.

- Veg Fish – It was deepfried and top with soya sauce. The first few taste was okay, after which we were quite sick of the food.

No GST but 10% service charge applies.

meL

‘Food itself is very personal; do not be affected by what I have written. Try it instead and tell me.’

Been to Greenland several times with friends and relatives who happen to be vegetarian. It was hassle free to order food as everything is vegetarian, and for overseas visitors quite a novelty to have local food they normally cannot eat. The not so adventurous Indian palette also give Greenland a hearty thumbs up!

The sambal fish, mock satay, schezwan mushroom are pretty good and reasonably priced. We went around 9 and the place was deserted but our food came quite fast, well cooked and fresh.

Drink choices as pointed out by others is limited to chinese tea and chrysanthemum tea, but its not a deal breaker. I walk to the place as its less than a km from home, but for other parking could be an issue.

Highly recommended to go once in a while and esp. if you have vegetarian visitors to take dining!

Food/ Beverage

The food served is solely chinese cuisine. The food is good I must admit, presentation and taste was very good. There's not much beverages though, the typical you would find at most chinese restaurants. They do not serve alcohol or allow alcohol in the premises.

Ambience

The location isn't exactly convienient. You probably need to take a bus from Serangoon MRT. Decor is chinese, yellow lights. It has a small stage for weddings I assume. It was pretty noisy when I went, typical of most Chinese restaurants

Value

The food here is expensive. Considering it is vegetarian. The location isn't exactly good, and the rent's probably cheap. The prices here are above Ling Zhi vegetarian which has MUCH better ambience.

Service

The restaurant's pretty short on waitresses. They do not pour you tea like most Chinese restaurants do. The manager kept forcing me to take a package meal, which was actually more expensive than the individual items. Naturally I did not fell for it. I would advice people to check the size of the dishes in the packages when you order, and see whether's its worth it.

I'll probably return if I have the money. If not, I think other places serve food as good or even better for a lower price.

A decent place suitable for people who want to have a nice vegetarian meal, without having to eat only GREEN VEGETABLES for the entire meal course.

Most of the 'mock' dishes were rather tasty (mock fish, mock chicken, mock ngo hiang, mock sausage...etc) and surprising even young kids finished up their food!

Service was poor as they seemed to be short-handed. Price abit on the high side but people wanting to have some good vegetarian fare should really pay to try it here!