In spite of the Turkish people's renowned rug-weaving skills, I take this as a negative. I'm trying to think of a snappy rejoinder when I begin to gag on the first bite of vegetarian burger. He's right; it's horrible. I extract the ersatz meat from the bun and offer it to Penny the cocker spaniel. Penny sniffs it politely, gives me a you-must-be-kidding look that certain dogs are good at conveying, and shuns me for the rest of the day.
So I'm eating a lettuce and tomato sandwich for dinner, my cousin is convinced that I'm a fool, and the dog thinks I'm scum. I'm hardly in the mood to believe that vegetarianism is its own reward, but what really ticks me off is the blithe implication that I had some sort of choice. My only options were to eat the veggie burger or not eat at all.
When this is what happens with family, vegetarians can expect an even more adversarial -- if superficially cordial -- encounter in the average carnivore- oriented restaurant. While vegetarians may see themselves as ecofriendly and enlightened, chances are the restaurant staff sees them as obsessive-compulsive, holier-than-thou social masochists likely to leave a minuscule tip after demanding special treatment. Not that I'm bitter.
What a relief to enter the sanctuary of Tien Ren Vegetarian Restaurant, a place with a multitude of meatless choices and no worries about invisible ingredients like chicken stock or lard. Tien Ren, Chinese for "heavenly benevolence," is in fact a vegan restaurant where no animal products of any kind are used, including eggs or dairy products. I'm not a vegan, but lots of vegetarians talk about becoming vegans -- the same way that lots of meat eaters talk about becoming vegetarians.
Longtime Houston vegetarians may recall that Tien Ren was once known as Wonderful Vegetarian Restaurant. Neo-hippies, multipierced X-ers and middle-aged guys dining alone with "recent quadruple bypass" all but branded on their foreheads would congregate there for the popular weekend buffet, along with gaggles of aerobicisers still clad in their new spandex who talked loudly about how "healthy the food is here" and how "we really must come here more often."
Wonderful Vegetarian entered a period of declining quality in the '90s when the late, lamented Green Planet Café farther out Westheimer consistently outshone it. To its credit, however, the restaurant in this slightly down-at-the-heels strip center has never wavered in its commitment to vegan cuisine, despite frequent changes in ownership. Several recent visits under the direction of relatively new management have proved that Tien Ren has again achieved a plateau of overall excellence that rivals the best the city offers in vegetarian cooking.
Tien Ren's minimalist decor and ambience are more sedate than I remember from the early days of Wonderful Vegetarian, which had something of a cafeteria atmosphere. Even the conversation level seems more subdued, and the Muzak -- slow, plaintive melodies that sound like the soundtrack of a Hong Kong action film when the hero is about to get laid -- is unquestionably less intrusive. A nearly unadorned Taoist religious shrine sits near the entrance to the kitchen, but there's no danger of having to deal with saffron-robed religious zealots or revved-up animal rights activists here.
Tien Ren's assorted appetizer platter is a virtual crash course in the variety of meat analogues available to vegetarians. With a selection of seitan, veggie ham, crispy tofu and sesame seaweed strips, this is a first course of impressive substance. The slices of seitan, a derivative of wheat gluten, look exactly like slices of brisket down to their charred perimeters. The flavor is similar to what I recall of the taste of cold roast beef, but chewier and without the unpleasantness of congealed fat. These seitan slices wouldn't taste at all out of place underneath a proper barbecue sauce.
I've heard other vegetarians say that veggie ham is problematic -- only because it can taste so much like its carnal counterpart. Tien Ren's soy-based version may be milder in flavor, but the textural consistency remains remarkably like that of pork, at least to a person who has only a vague recollection of eating pork. I'd like to get about a half-pound of this stuff to take home for grilled fake ham and real cheese sandwiches.
