It is safe to say, out of the myriad of vegetarian stalls that frequent 79a Circuit Road - Choo Zai Zhai has the most significant following. I was scowering the internet to find any customer feedback about Choo Zai Zhai and was pleased to see a new vegetarian food blogger, titled 'ieatgrass' has reviewed this eatery late last year. You can check out her review (and her site in general) - Here. Grass was certainly not something my stomach was itching for on this particular evening, so I was looking forward to sampling the many dishes that this eatery had on offer.Choo Zai Zhai Vegetarian Food
Location: 79A, Circuit Road, #01-89
Contact: 67457934
Opening Hours: Daily 11am – 11pm
Unlike many of the stalls at 79a, which sometimes close without reason, Choo Zai Zhai can usually be quite reliable with its opening and closing times. Another key difference that distinguishes this eatery from most stalls in the area is that - Choo Zai Zhai actually has quite a detailed menu, with there being countless Chinese dishes for the customer to deliberate over ordering. These include more economical dishes, such as hokkien mee, mui fan and fried bee hoon (all $3.00). These cheaper dishes are mixed with others that can double in price, such as claypot tofu, hot plate meat and sweet & sour porks ribs. The menu definitely could benefit from more accurate English definitions of the dishes, as dishes simply called 'celery' barely gives away any information about the contents of the dish (apart from that it will certainly have celery in it).
Needless to say, I wasn't tempted by the 'celery', and instead, begun this dining experience with the Oyster Omelet. Those that have had vegetarian oyster omelet before, will know that the mock oyster in this dish is actually a species of mushroom. An essential ingredient to a good (or even acceptable) oyster omelet is the use of sweet potato starch, which I sensed was missing from this. Texture wise, was an additional disappointment, as it was not chewy. Instead, this resembled carrot cake more than an omelet. The only savoir was the chilli sauce, which had superb aroma and a welcoming amount of sweetness.Price: $3.00. 4/10
Second dish of the evening came in the form of the Beef Hor Fun. Again, this was another below average dish. I don't like poorly cooked hor fun, which is unfortunately what I was served here. The noodles had a very gluey and sticky texture, which I found off-putting. Moreover, the noodles were attached to each other, thus render the dish having clumps of noodle. The mock 'beef' was derived from gluten - For health sake, I would have been happier to see mushroom stem mock meat. All in all, this was more like a kway teow soup, than a hor fun dish. Another one you'd be sensible to avoid.Price: $5.00. 5/10
Conclusion - If you'd made it this far through my review, then you will obviously sense that I wasn't very impressed overall at the quality of the food at Choo Zai Zhai. This eatery really falls in the same category as the rest of the vegetarian stalls in the food centre. Yes, it is fantastic to have a food centre which has such a wide array of vegetarian options to choose from. However, if I was hoping to display to someone how delicious vegetarian food can be, I definitely wouldn't bring them to Blk 79a - Where the food will either be average, or well below average.
Overall Rating
Food - 5/10
Ambiance- 6/10
Service - 5/10
Value - 5/10
