福祿壽健康素食 Fook Luk Sau Vegetarian Restaurant

Disclaimer: I did not get vegetarian today because of green Monday. Just stumbled upon this spot when I was on my way to my Crab dinner (post on that later) last Friday. Also, please do not mistaken this as the trendier, more hipster, more baller 福祿壽. That one is Fu Lu Shou (Mandarin pronunciation) and this one is Fook Luk Sau (Cantonese pronunciation).

Master Liu Yut 了一法師 once talked about just aiming to have a vegetarian meal once a day (not breakfast) would already be a good deed versus not trying to have any vegetarian meals at all. Anyway, it's also a good way to switch up your lunch options every now and then. Is it a healthy option? I know I have that as a label, but I don't really know how healthy this is just because there is no meat. I mean... other things such as salt, sugar, carbs, starch etc etc also contribute to an unhealthy diet. Anyway, your call whether or not you find this healthy!

This place reminds me of another vegetarian place that I only had the pleasure of trying once as it shut down days after I went there. It was called 开心素食 Happy Vegetarian, and was also in Central near Pottinger Street. The style is pretty much exactly the same, you get rice and a choice of 2-3 dishes on top of it ($22 for 2 dishes, no soup or $26 for 3 dishes plus soup). If you dine in it's around $30 since you'd be taking up space and I hear you would get unlimited rice.

Today I went with the following, 

• Brown and white rice as the base: given the price, please do not expect a load of brown rice in the mix. Also unlike regular local lunch boxes, the rice only takes up about a quarter of the box.
• "Duck" w/ plum sauce: got 2 pieces, quite tasty and perhaps a little too spicy.
• "Lamb" with tofu curd and turnip/radish: creepy, the lamb really did taste a bit... lamb-ish. Tofu curd was standard, turnip/radish was standard and would have been a little bit more cooked.
• Bitter melon and "beef" scrambled eggs: probably my favorite out of the 3 since I finished it last. Not a fan of the imitation beef but can't really taste it if you eat it with the eggs so it's alright. The egg is scrambled the very Chinese way where it's slightly uncooked (err but what about avian flu...). The melon wasn't too bitter so it's right up my alley.
• Some Chinese melon soup (the daily): UGH! I was expecting some tasty MSG soup but no! it really is vegetarian!! Absolutely tasteless so I'm sorry but you've got to go... down the drain. I won't waste food next time and just let them know that I will skip the soup.

This place is very close to where I work, I was able to get there and back within 20 minutes (fast service since they are just scooping premade food into a lunch box). I would definitely go back since this adds to my lunch options, but I got to make sure I collect enough hot sauce packets to my stash since it makes a huge difference when added to the dishes.

I'm not sure how comfortable you are going there without a Cantonese speaker, but you may be able to figure out what to get without speaking Chinese as they show the dishes behind a glass case with numbers beside it, so you just order by telling the lady what number you want and whether you want noodles or rice (go with the rice. I don't think the noodles will be that good).

Random Chinese blurb that doesn't have anything to do with the restaurant that I can only say in Chinese: 偶爾不殺生去吃素當然是好的，但是如果你心腸不好，或者不吃素的時候瘋狂的吃肉，又或者你經常的浪費食物，我覺得你吃多少素都很難抵消你的罪業。每個人不多不少都會有罪過的時候，但是希望你吃素或做善事的時候是誠心地去做，而不是為了某種回報。

Location: No. 8 Tit Hong Lane (enter through Jubilee Street)
Website: NA