Vegan Chinese Food

SuTao Cafe - 81 Lancaster Ave, Malvern, PA 19035
http://www.sutaocafe.com/

A friend of ours turned 25 this week and we were invited to a birthday dinner in his honor. Interestingly enough, our friend is a vegan, and his live-in girlfriend is allergic to gluten (wheat). The restaurant that was chosen, SuTao Cafe, is a Chinese restaurant that caters to the vegan friendly, gluten free, no sugar diet.

As a carnivore, I was pretty impressed by the food. The meal was served buffet style and had many of your traditional Chinese dishes - fried rice (vegetable), lo mein (vegetable also), vegetable and vegetable/tofu sushi, and more. Many dishes had the "meat substitute," like the General Tso's chicken. There was also a salad bar with fresh fruit, miso soup, vegetables tempura, and some really awesome spring rolls. Unlike many vegan/vegetarian meals I've had, I actually felt fulfilled with this one. The meal was very flavorful, and I didn't feel like I was "missing" anything.

The service was fine; since it was buffet style, our party didn't require attention. The wait staff came in a few times to check up on us, but since we had pitchers of beverages, it wasn't necessary. As the early evening wore on, more and more patrons arrived to the restaurant, but there were still quite a few tables available as we walked out around 6:45 pm (we had the private room in the back). The restaurant is tucked into the corner of a shopping center that I've driven by on numerous occasions but never knew it was there.

One of the other options that the SuTao Cafe offers is menu service. They have a full menu, which we did not take advantage of.

The best part was the affordability of the place. While we were lucky and had our dinner paid for, a quick look at their online menu shows that the dinner buffet costs under $15/person.

In all, great food, decent service, no vote on atmosphere (we were in a private room), and great price!

Final Outlook: Strongly Recommend!