Whole Earth (Peck Seah Street)

I have a secret desire to one day go vegetarian for all the healthy and spiritual benefits that it brings. But I find it hard to bid farewell to my seafood and meats so until I have a really good reason to...vegetarian remains a integral part of my diet. Plus the fact that trying to eat healthy, along the lines of going organic or pure vegetarian is actually more expensive here in Singapore. Anything not genetically engineered or ladened (read: flavoured) with pesticides cost less than any naturally grown veg in the wild.

I enthusiastically agreed to go for the food tasting at Whole Earth upon invitation from HGW. After I agreed though, I realised that I wasn't quite sure what kind of vegan food they serve thinking that it might be one of those faddish organic joints or worse... raw food diet!

Was absolutely relived when Hoongy explained that its more chinese vegetarian where the focus is more on using fresh vegetables without MSG and none of those mock meats made of gluten. The latter puts me off.

A little sign outside the restaurant said "Peranakan Thai Vegetarian". I was more intrigured and with the restaurant almost full with the CBD lunch crowd, it was looking very promising.

Our lunch was pre-ordered and I was famished and eager to dig in.

We were first offer the fresh lemongrass drink with honey which to me is always a refreshing start to any meal. Mild enough to cleanse your palette and cool enough to calm your system.

Sambal Belachan with homemade seaweed chips: This is a small dish of starter made of fried beancurd with seaweed which makes it look like fried fish skin. Very addictive and I kind of secretly had most to myself since it was on my side of the table. (SORRY GUYS!..hehe)

Tom Yam Soup: Their tom yum soup to me is a fusion of the Thai and Peranakan version. Not quite crystal clear like the thai tom yum but not quite coconut milky like the nonya style. The owner Phyllis explained that the lean towards the Thai border more than the Melakan/Peranakan style, making their soup more sour-ish.

Sambal Kangkong: The secret is in the sambal!

Assam Pedas: This is my favourite dish and I believe it got a thumbs up from most of us around the table too. The "fish" was made of beancurd and the texture taste exactly like the real thing. Very tasty and you really wouldn't know the difference if no one told you it wasn't fish.

Nyonya Curry: This apparently took 8 hours of laborious cooking and you could tell from the flavour that its very close to the peranakan version.

Bailing Mushroom with Fresh Greens: I love the mushrooms! These are apparently "compressed" mushrooms which I have no idea what it meant but I suppose it just refers to the flattened out mushrooms which I guess have been compressed? (doh!)

Thai Green Curry : I think I much prefer the original version. Didn't quite tickle me fancy.

Ngor Hiang: Not as fragrant as the real peranakan ones but still tasty.

Rendang: The rendang looks exactly like it but the "meat" was made of tofu! The restaurant uses over a dozen different types of tofu and have spent hours researching and testing the various combination to obtain the exact texture they want.

Olive Rice: Very fragrant and a lot less oily than most I've had.


Cold Tofu with minced "meat" : The most fascinating part of this is the supposedly minced "meat" which was made out of ...OATMEAL!! I swear it looks and taste like meat. They could do a really mean "Char Jiang Mian" and no one could know the difference!



We've probably only tried about 30% of their menu and upon flipping through the rest of what they have to offer, I salivate at the pictorial sight of the other dishes which looks extremely promising. Definitely a vegan's dream come true!

I have visited the sister outlet Naive twice. So I decided to try Whole Earth when I had a vegetarian craving again. I read the reviews from HGW and had a pretty good idea what to expect.

Table service started with 2 finger food; a small dish of fried bean curd skin and another of pickles. At $1.50 each, they should have advise that this would be added to the bill. I hate restaurants that 'spring unsuspecting' customers with extra charges. So one thumb down.

We had the following:

Homemade beancurd with mushroom - the description on the menu sounded delectable. But it turned out to be a plate of beancurd skin rolled and deep fried. A real let down.

Broccoli with braised monkeyhead mushroom - the chef did a better job with this then at Naive. I really like teh texture and crunch of monkeyhead mushroom at both places and it is normally not available in other restaurants.

Homemade Assam Pedas - true to the recommendation in HGW, this was really good. I cleaned the dish with olive brown rice.

Dessert was homemade lemongrass jelly with longan - the lemongrass jelly was really fragrant. This make sthis dessert so much more interesting than the usual jelly with longan.

So overall, the food was on par with the sister-restaurant, Naive. But its ambience was not good; the place is a noise maker and considreing there was about 15 people in a 50-seater place, the noise level was high so I can't imagine what it is like if it was full.

The service staff were very friendly and attentive. Though I found it odd that when my friend and I were deep in conversation, the server came over to chat with us about the food on 2 occasions. I found that intrusive.

Would I come back again - only if I have a craving for their assam pedas. 

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” — Albert Einstein.

Ok actually my mother just wanted to check out Whole Earth after my aunties recommended the place to her.

Look! Even HungryGoWhere patronizes Whole Earth! This guy was spotted with about 6 plastic takeaway boxes. :P

We didn’t order the appetizers ($3), yet they are not complimentary. The Seaweed chips are just fried beancurd skin. I didn’t try the other appetizer which is some vegetable soaked in vinegar.

My mother wanted to try the Olive Rice ($6) which was one of the chef’s recommendations in the menu. We were quite disappointed because it tasted quite like ordinary fried rice.

However, I kinda like the quality of rice that was used which is not the typical thin grain Thai rice. I was also thankful that the rice wasn’t oily.

The Nonya curry ($16) was not too spicy and was slightly sweet. Good for those who cannot stomach spicy food. But the portion is really quite small. I wouldn’t really recommend this.

Another healthy dish, Fresh Greens with Jade Bailing Mushrooms ($15)! The mushrooms were firm yet easy to chew and the texture is not too rubbery.

My family loves spicy food so for us to pass up the Tom yam soup ($15) is simply out of the question. It was spicy enough to satisfy me. Although I don’t really like sour food, I feel that the tom yam soup would deserve more marks if it was slightly more sour. There were generous servings of vegetables and lemongrass in it.

In fact, my brother loved the tom yam soup so much that he suggested we should try the Tom Yam Fried Rice ($6) too. It wasn’t that spicy but it was definitely better than the olive fried rice.

The Fried Mee Suah ($6) was a little bit oily but still acceptable. I don’t have anything else to comment. Haha.

I strongly recommend the 5-Spice Ngor Hiang Roll ($10)! Not only is it value for money, I like its presentation too. Finally something that looks more interesting than soup or rice. Haha! Yeah it tastes good too, just remember to dip it into the sweet sauce. Not too much though!

For those who love your greens might wanna consider the Sambal Kangkong ($12). I will not compare it with the non-vegetarian version because it it ultimately the belachan that brings out the flavor in this dish.

It’s nice to go on a vegetarian diet once in a while and it’s also interesting to see how people can get creative coming up with meatless dishes!

Total bill came to about $100 after 10% service charge.

Feel free to read up on my review here :)

We chanced upon Whole Earth one day when my lunch kaki and I were searching for a place for lunch at Tanjong Pagar and their $9.90+ set lunch got our attention. We ordered Kong Bah Braised Mushroom and Nyonya Curry as our mains and topped up extra $1 for their olive rice. The mushrooms certainly had been braised in gravy for several intensive hours, as each bite onto which resulted bursting of rich flavours. It was my companion’s choice of main, but I almost finished the entire dish myself. As for the curry, both of us agreed that it tasted even better than the real deal (the meat version)! Besides this weekday lunch promotion, Worth Earth’s menu also carries a full array of Thai Peranakan dishes promise to tantalise your taste buds yet go easy on your wallet. Don’t just take my word for it, hit Tanjong Pagar today down to Worth Earth and try it yourself. For a full write-up and more photos, feel free to visit amasou-umasou.

Happen to get to know about CNY Set Menu at Whole Earth. There are about 5 CNY sets but we tried the 6-course CNY Set Menu – Joy Set @ S$188+ (LNY Special Menu) on 6 Feb 2010.  Taking advantage of the early bird discount, we got a discount of 10% plus a complimentary dinning voucher (which we passed it on to our friend, so that they have a chance to discover the wonders in vegetarian cuisine).  

Prosperity Abalone Fruit Enzyme YuSheng

This is well presented and looks so much better than the photo we got. Those few pea shoots on YuSheng look like fallen leaves lying on the ground, so natural and beautiful. There were many ingredients in this Yusheng, but I have no idea what there were and only know it tasted good.  I guess the rest of us just find this dish delicious and really have no idea that it was healthier (using Fruit Enzyme) than the normal Yusheng which used plum sauce and oil.  

Doubleboilded Golden Pumpkin Sharksfin Soup

LOVE it.  It was real delicious, special, rich and my son kept asking for more. There were many different ingredients, yet balanced well and harmonize with the rest of the ingredients. Using pumpkin puree in the broth, make it looked like a pot of gold. 

Nyonya Homemade Tofu Fish with Thai Dill Leaves

Appetizing and delectable! Something new to me – Thai Dill Leaves, still wondering what is that herb. The sauce of this dish came with the right thickness, sweet, sourly with bit spiciness. It was very appetizing and paired well with the Tofu Fish and steamed rice.

Monkeyhead Mushroom served on Asparagus

As usual, Monkeyhead Mushroom is our favourite. This dish was rather exceptional as it used Angelica Root which is full of goodness and yet not overpowering. Nicely presented. Asparagus is never my favourite but this dish was well done. The baby asparagus was fresh and not over cooked and soaking up the favour from the sauce nicely.  Therefore, we could finish something which wasn’t our favourite veggie. 

Thai Vermicelli Tang Hoon

I like bean vermicelli (Tang Hoon) but not this combination. So, we requested the waitress to help us packed it as takeaway. Maybe, they should allow choices on noodle or vermicelli. 

Homemade Lemongrass Jelly with Longan

For dessert, wobbly jelly full of lemongrass flavour was been served.  Sweet (it tastes like there was honey) and refreshing! 

Thai Battered Oyster Mushroom @ S$15

This dish was not in the CNY set menu. Whole Earth whips up this dish so well that my young nephew (non-vegetarian) after tasted once in the eatery more than half a year ago, could still remember it so well and requested us to order while we were busy enjoying our meal. 

At that point, in time, we have no idea what he was talking about until we have to use the menu with the picture to check with him before we placed the order.  He felt so satisfactory when he popped the battered oyster mushroom into his mouth. That makes us feel happy too, at least our little fussy eater and who does not eat much, was eating some stuff.

One the whole, the serving was not big but we were full at the end.  Prices, it still within the range of those non-vegetarian casual-dining restaurants/eateries in the market, I guess. And with their many different promotions, it does make dinning easy on the pocket.

 Ambience is not something very fanciful as compare to many other hip non-vegetarian eateries, but it is quite a nice place. 

Food - they do serve delectable veggie food - NO MSG and mock stuff that really WOWED my non-vegetarian family members.

 

Went with my colleagues on Friday.  Coincides with 15th of lunar calendar and the restaurant ceased all set menus and discounts on 1st (new moon) and 15th (full moon).

Food was good but most of the dishes were quite salty.  Quite an irony if you're eating vegan for health reasons.

Nonetheless, it's quite a challenge to find good vegan restaurant that serves different dishes and Whole Earth is still a good place to enjoy nice vegan dishes.   I'll specifically request the cooks to hold the salt if I go the next time.  

Due to the decor of the place, which is very bare with cement flooring, it is quite noisy due to the echo to hold conversation.

 

 

I went here with my two girl friends, because I had heard about it from my veggie buddies. I am trying to go vegetarian.

We had

- olive brown rice
- assam pedas
- nyonya curry
- sambal king
- destressor
- one cup of brown rice

All the food was amazingly well done. The curries tasted really good, and the olive brown rice was healthy as well as tasty. Whoever said vegetarian food was bland? I actually preferred the mock meat in the nyonya curry to real chicken, and the mock fish in assam pedas was also very well done, with attention to details, like imitating the skin of the fish.

Also, I put down that we spent 70 bucks for 3 people, but we had a discount coupon that entitled us to 20 dollars off a min of 60 bucks spending, so in actuality, we only forked out 50. But in case you don't get the coupon, this is the price you would pay.

I found the juices to be too highly priced, but maybe it is just me. Actually if you consider the fact that it is vegetarian, the entire meal should have cost less. Also, they served us the appetisers, seaweed skin or something, but didn't tell us that we would be charged for it. So for some reason, we had to pay additional for that. It is actually slightly more pricy than usual, because each curry costs like 15 dollars or something. But maybe the price corresponds to the kind of effort they put in to the food, though it doesn't reflect in the ambience or the decor.

It was also quite filling though we essentially had only one plate of olive brown rice. I would return to the place if I can get more of those discount coupons.

I understand all the reviews so far, since they shifted from Geylang, were positive. Hence foresee many will not agree with my comment here...

Went Whole earth on 20 Sep 09, a beautiful Sunday after a family outing at Botanic Garden.My mum is a Buddhism nun, as such, we been frequently patronizing vegetarian restaurants. Had visited Whole Earth in Geylang, the impression there was rustic and homely... slow in service = yes, but still bearable.

Today located at Peck Seah St, Whole earth has a new face lift. The restaurant is bright, clean and forward looking. More Zen feel... however, I can’t stop but felt that while the restaurant tried hard to re-package and position as "up-market" brand than another Geylang vegetarian restuarant, the food range, price and service have also been upgraded and improved?

Dun gets me wrong, the taste is good... really esp. being the 1st in offering Penakan Vegetarian. However, the price is real steep with the size of serving and ingredients offered. Unless the direction of the restaurant management is to focus only on executive lunch set menu otherwise for a family of 4 to dine in Whole Earth costing nearly S$200 is definitely not worth while.

The dishes we ordered are posted. Decent food but not decent price… also to add salt to wound, maybe it was a Sunday that we visited, the crews were reluctant to move, to take order, to recommend or even serving water. Equally shocking, being a vegetarian restaurant the young female service crew tat day was shocked to see a nun inside the restaurant and kept eye signal her colleagues not willing to serve our table…???

The shop looks very clean and simple- with the sighboard '' The Whole earth''. It was just a walking distance away frm T.Pagar Mrt station but i think the location is not very ideal. They have moved frm Geylang to this present location.

They are the first thai-peranakan vegetarian restuarant in sp. What is offered are are some of the thai and peranakan dishes which u can find in that& peranakan restaurant. They substitute the meat with tofu, mushrooms & veggies.

Menu isnt very extensive- mushrm, veg, starters, rice and beverage.
The 2 salads which i intended to order is not available so i had the thai lettuce roll and a bowl of brown rice. The staff recommended me the stir-fried brocolli with oyster mushrms. However, i do not really like brocolli .

Pickles were served and the food arrive shortly. It consists of sweet ginger, sambal belanchan chilli and seaweed crisp. The balachan is very pungent and a little spicy. I like this! They made this themselves and it's not available for sale. Seaweed crisp is crispy. It is actually beancurd stick and seaweed and then fried.

The brown rice has a very good texture. It wasnt mushy and i can easily pick out the different grains. The thai lettuce roll consists of some tomatoes slices, lettuce leaves and a ''paste'' made frm tofu, chilli and some veggies. The use of different spices in this'' paste'' highly demonstrate the thai culture here. You would have to wrap the paste and tomatoes together with the lettuce leaves, otherwise, it will taste a little salty. I like this dish as it shows the creative-ness of the chef and it is very delicious. The serving is a little small though.

Svc here is very friendly and according to the staff, naive company @ east coast rd actually belongs to the same company.



* Fruit juices- 50% off every tues& wed.

I have a secret desire to one day go vegetarian for all the healthy and spiritual benefits that it brings. But I find it hard to bid farewell to my seafood and meats so until I have a really good reason to...vegetarian remains a integral part of my diet. Plus the fact that trying to eat healthy, along the lines of going organic or pure vegetarian is actually more expensive here in Singapore. Anything not genetically engineered or ladened (read: flavoured) with pesticides cost less than any naturally grown veg in the wild.

I enthusiastically agreed to go for the food tasting at Whole Earth upon invitation from HGW. After I agreed though, I realised that I wasn't quite sure what kind of vegan food they serve thinking that it might be one of those faddish organic joints or worse... raw food diet!

Was absolutely relived when Hoongy explained that its more chinese vegetarian where the focus is more on using fresh vegetables without MSG and none of those mock meats made of gluten. The latter puts me off.

A little sign outside the restaurant said "Peranakan Thai Vegetarian". I was more intrigured and with the restaurant almost full with the CBD lunch crowd, it was looking very promising.

Our lunch was pre-ordered and I was famished and eager to dig in.

We were first offer the fresh lemongrass drink with honey which to me is always a refreshing start to any meal. Mild enough to cleanse your palette and cool enough to calm your system.

Sambal Belachan with homemade seaweed chips: This is a small dish of starter made of fried beancurd with seaweed which makes it look like fried fish skin. Very addictive and I kind of secretly had most to myself since it was on my side of the table. (SORRY GUYS!..hehe)

Tom Yam Soup: Their tom yum soup to me is a fusion of the Thai and Peranakan version. Not quite crystal clear like the thai tom yum but not quite coconut milky like the nonya style. The owner Phyllis explained that the lean towards the Thai border more than the Melakan/Peranakan style, making their soup more sour-ish.

Sambal Kangkong: The secret is in the sambal!

Assam Pedas: This is my favourite dish and I believe it got a thumbs up from most of us around the table too. The "fish" was made of beancurd and the texture taste exactly like the real thing. Very tasty and you really wouldn't know the difference if no one told you it wasn't fish.

Nyonya Curry: This apparently took 8 hours of laborious cooking and you could tell from the flavour that its very close to the peranakan version.

Bailing Mushroom with Fresh Greens: I love the mushrooms! These are apparently "compressed" mushrooms which I have no idea what it meant but I suppose it just refers to the flattened out mushrooms which I guess have been compressed? (doh!)

Thai Green Curry : I think I much prefer the original version. Didn't quite tickle me fancy.

Ngor Hiang: Not as fragrant as the real peranakan ones but still tasty.

Rendang: The rendang looks exactly like it but the "meat" was made of tofu! The restaurant uses over a dozen different types of tofu and have spent hours researching and testing the various combination to obtain the exact texture they want.

Olive Rice: Very fragrant and a lot less oily than most I've had.


Cold Tofu with minced "meat" : The most fascinating part of this is the supposedly minced "meat" which was made out of ...OATMEAL!! I swear it looks and taste like meat. They could do a really mean "Char Jiang Mian" and no one could know the difference!



We've probably only tried about 30% of their menu and upon flipping through the rest of what they have to offer, I salivate at the pictorial sight of the other dishes which looks extremely promising. Definitely a vegan's dream come true!

Calling this a vegetarian restaurant places it in the same category as the gluten, white bee hoon and vegetable oily restaurants that call themselves by the name. I'd rather call this a non-meat restaurant. It is non-meat because they use almost all other ingredients and food stuff in coming out with tasty, special and extraordinary dishes to tickle your palette.

Food: For starters we had the fresh lemon grass with honey, the honey was overwhelming and I requested for the celery drink which was very tasty and refreshing. Having just eaten fried fish skin, the seaweed chips were pretty close to the fish skins. We had their tom yam soup, which lacked the "uumph" and depth of taste of normal tom yam soup, the sambal kangkong served meatless was good. There was a weak attempt at the "ngoh hiang" in going meatless but the oustanding dishes were Assam pedas with soy simulated fish fillets, nyonya curry with chunks of something which sure looked like mutton chunks, and the most memorable was the Penang Rendang strips of soy/mushroom/veg in top class rendang sauce (no meat mind you) which I thoroughly enoyed. All these were prepared with long hours of cooking to allow the spices to steep into the sauces, giving it a depth that a 10 min cook could not duplicate. Very tasty and memorable dishes eaten with dry fried olive rice.

Ambience: White, wavy lines on the wall, brightly lit, large windows to see and bee seen all add to a nice bistro setting - less foie gras that is.

Value: Their set lunch was pegged at $14.90 so you better have a good reason to go meatless.

Service: Pleasant, described most dishes and reminding us that the recipes are uniquely Whole Earth.