su xing house

su xing house
1508 sansom street
philadelphia, pa
(215) 564 1419
suxinghouse.com

type of cuisine: chinese
culinary excellence: 7
vegan friendliness: 10
*recommended*

another entry in the Philadelphia Chinese vegetarian scene, perfect for a late dinner after taking in a show at the prince theater. the ambiance is quiet and pleasant, with friendly servers. luca and i started our meal with an order of scallion pancakes. nothing noteworthy here, just your typical crispy greasy cakes with a light dipping sauce. for our entrees, we shared general tso tofu and stir-fried string beans. the former was very nice, with chunks of crispy-on-the-outside-soft-on-the-inside bean curd, along with some broccoli, in a sweet brown sauce. the string beans were very salty and garlicky and made for a nice side dish, but i can't imagine just eating string beans for dinner. some question remains about su xing using msg in their food. i'm not terribly sensitive to the stuff so i couldn't tell, but i did feel a bit hungry even after i was full. might as well ask. not sure if their various fruit and tapioca shakes are vegan, but that would be a good thing to find out too, since it seems to be their specialty. finally, it's usually nice when a restaurant provides pictures of the menu items, but in this case, they would probably be better off without them, given the poor image quality. i was settled on the taro croquettes with cashews until I saw how unappealing they looked from the photo!