Lettuce Eat Veggies

Miranda Calacsan, Art and Photo Editor

Are you looking for a healthy place to eat? Are you a vegan or vegetarian? If so, check out Veggie Lee!

Veggie Lee is an oriental Chinese restaurant owned by Che Heng “Veggie” Lee. Before opening his restaurant, Lee had problems with his weight and cholesterol. This prompted him to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle and he lost 30 pounds. Lee hopes that his restaurant inspires his customers to eat healthier.

At Veggie Lee, the menu offers many traditional Chinese dishes. However, no actual meat is served; their vegan chicken, pork, and beef are all gluten based. They also don’t use heavy oil, onions or garlic in any of their dishes either.

One dish I highly recommend as an appetizer is the salt and pepper pumpkin. The pumpkin is put into a tempura mix, fried, then seasoned. I was intrigued by the contrasting flavors of this dish. The crispy, salty outside contrasted beautifully with the soft, sweet inside of the pumpkin.

A few stand-outs on their menu were the orange vegan chicken and the vegan beef fried rice. None of them were super greasy or too salty. The orange vegan chicken had the right amount of sweetness I was looking for.

Veggie Lee is a great Chinese restaurant with a wide assortment of healthy food. Even though I’m not a vegan or vegetarian, I still enjoyed trying their food. My only concern about the restaurant is that it’s a bit pricey so I recommend ordering only a few dishes.

Veggie Lee is located on 25036 Hesperian Blvd, Hayward. They’re open from 11 a.m – 3 p.m and 4:30 p.m – 9:30 p.m daily. Five Stars.