Vegetarian food can taste this good

Once in a while I han­ker for a steak, done medium-rare, and I used to think I wouldn’t sur­vive a day with­out meat. I also have a sen­si­tive stom­ach, about which Naomi loves to talk with some glee to her friends and relatives.

We read some­where awhile ago about ‘eat­ing for your blood type’, and that because I’m type A+, I should avoid meats, espe­cially red meat. And though it’s been rub­bished by some peo­ple, I decided to give veg­e­tar­ian diets a try about two years back. Wouldn’t you know it, the tummy aches and explo­sive diar­rhea more or less disappeared.

You’d think it’s as sim­ple as con­vert­ing one­self right away to a com­pletely veg­e­tar­ian diet, but when you’ve got meat eaters in your fam­ily, it’s hard not to put some meat on your plate. Plus, I like my steak, roast pork, char­siew, and some­times, I feel like it’s worth the tummy ache.

But Naomi and I have decided again, when­ever we’re at home — because it’s usu­ally just Kai and our­selves, to eat as much of a veg­e­tar­ian diet as pos­si­ble, with just a lit­tle meat on the side, instead of the other way around.

If you’re omniv­o­rous like us, and you’re con­sid­er­ing switch­ing to a veg­e­tar­ian diet, don’t think of it as hav­ing to give up good tast­ing food, or hav­ing to suf­fer Chi­nese veg­e­tar­ian hor­rors as “mock duck”, “mock abalone” and “mock pork” at some veg­e­tar­ian eater­ies. I think it’s ridicu­lous that veg­e­tar­ian dishes are made up to be fac­sim­i­les of meat ones. It’s not sup­posed to be a sacrifice.

We’ve been for­tu­nate to have friends who’ve given us tips on where and what to eat — and the restau­rant we lunched at yes­ter­day is one of the places we’d rec­om­mend highly.

Naïve is at 99 East Coast Road, oppo­site Katong Mall, and when Naomi called to make a reser­va­tion, she was told not to worry about that and just walk in. Walk in we did, and stand and wait we did for a table for about 15 min­utes before we over-ordered, over­ate, and then lugged our full veg­e­tar­ian stom­achs around for the rest of the afternoon.

If you were tee­ter­ing on whether to turn veg­e­tar­ian (for what­ever rea­sons — to save the planet is a good one), a meal at Naïve could tip you over the edge. The food is that good. It’s even more amaz­ing that not only are their dishes meat­less, they’re also MSG-less, egg-less, onion-less and garlic-less.

If you over-order and over-eat, expect to pay about $30+ a person.