jasmine asian bistro

jasmine asian bistro
138 south easton road
glenside, pa
(215) 885 4333

type of cuisine: chinese
culinary excellence: 5
vegan friendliness: 8

truth be told, i love chinese food, but i'm always a little nervous about it. in all of my adventures in cooking, i have never been able to replicate the addictive gooey sauces that abound in chinese dishes. this has led me to the conclusion that they are made of ingredients that no cookbook author would endorse. that said, i still enjoy me some chinese take-out every now and then. when luca and i lived in wynnewood, chung sing was our drug of default, now it's jasmine over in glenside. i still haven't found my dish at jasmine, but i have sampled a number of their vegetarian menu items. the problem is that when you order a mock meat dish, you don't know if you're gonna get seitan or that weird rubbery stuff. you also can't be sure that what you're ordering is totally vegan, since they don't seem to know what that means. one time i ordered the pineapple fried rice, and even after the woman taking my order confirmed that it had no animal products in it, it was sure enough full of eggs. assuming that their vegetarian wonton soup and veg egg rolls are vegan, i can definitely recommend them.



love me some wonton soup and eggrolls. i do, however, find myself frustrated that the crispy noodles that come with the soup are so thoroughly greasy that it's impossible to add more than 1 or 2 without feeling like you're just eating oil. scallion pancakes are average, and therefore pretty good:



the general tso's chicken is ridiculously deep-fried seitan with a nice just-spicy-enough sauce and some broccoli. i have not enjoyed the sesame chicken, which is that strange untextured fake meat swimming in an odd and slightly unpleasant sauce. one nice thing i can say about jasmine is that their restaurant is not bad for eating-in. the servers are nice and the space is large and clean. any regulars have recommendations from the vegetarian menu?