Welcome to Taipei’s vegetarian paradise in Little Tree Food! Indulge in a tantalizing world of plant-based delights right here. Here you will discover the symphony of flavors in handmade vegetable dumplings, savoring delicate vegetarian snacks like truffle tots, Korean-style fried cauliflower, and grilled corn. Taipei offers a captivating fusion of traditional Taiwanese vegetarian cuisine and innovative plant-based creations, with Little Tree Food getting honored with Bib Gourmand and also featured in The Michelin Guide with a Michelin Green Star. Experience the vibrant culinary landscape that celebrates the beauty and diversity of vegetarian food. here at Little Tree Food.
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A Foodie’s Guide to 15 Taipei Bib Gourmand Restaurants
Little Tree Food currently has 3 branches, with 2 of them being quite close to each other in the Da'An District and one in Zhongshan. We went to the Dunnan branch, which is about 5 minutes walk from Zhongxhiao Fuxing MRT station.
I may make a conscious effort to cook vegetarian food at home, but it's not often that I go out to eat vegetarian food. However, this was one of those times that I was quite excited to go to Little Tree Food and get my veg on. I had heard good things, but was it really going to match my high expectations?
The menu at Little Tree Food
When you sit down at the table, you'll be forced to get your phone out and snap the QR code that comes with the table. In that sense, the menu is incredibly easy to navigate.
Signature Set for 4 - $2980
A few things to note that Little Tree Food is very explicit on their menu: This set is not provided for above four people. This set cannot be replaced with other products at a price increase. This set is for internal use only and no takeout is available. It cannot be used in conjunction with other exchange vouchers/banking activities. A 10% service charge will be added to your check.
4 of us ordered the Signature set for 4, and we were all satiated by the end of our meal. I am confident that you won't need to stop off anywhere on the way home for a top-up snack of any kind, rest assured!
Truffle Tots
I was bang up for the truffle tots. I love me some deep-fried potatoes, whatever form they come in.
Crispy, fluffy, crunchy, juicy. All of those. The truffle sauce was quite a heavily salty flavour, but I was all there for that. Dipped in that tangy tomato ketchup, this was a great way for me to not necessarily start my meal.
Deep-fried food as a starter is probably not the right thing to do, in my opinion. However, I did continue to keep chipping away at these throughout the meal, even when they were cold...
Sauerkraut Dumplings
The skin on these was a little thicker than some of the incredibly delicate thin-skinned dumplings that I know and love from places such as Din Tai Fung, but that isn't to say that they were bad. They were chewy, they were tasty, and the sauerkraut filling was an interesting flavour combination that I wasn't expecting to work, but it just kind of did.
I wouldn't order this a la carte, but I didn't mind it too much as part of a set.
Korean Style Fried Cauliflower
Yes. Bang on. I love deep-fried cauliflower. Then slap some spicy Korean sauce on it, and I am loving it just that little bit more. What could be better? Some grated cheese. But that's probably asking a little bit too much.
To say that these were spicy is a bit of an overstatement. There was a delicate hint of chilli here, but not much more than that. The batter wasn't too thick, and the sauce had a good depth of flavour due to the Korean gojuchang that has been used for the sauce. The batter allowed the cauliflower to continue to steam inside, but not to the point that it became soggy.
I liked this a lot!
Avocado Tomato Salad
It's a bit of a stretch to say that this is an 'avocado' salad, as there are about 3 cubes of avocado here. But, the tomato portion of the salad was plentiful and delicious. The ginger vinaigrette was delightfully fragrant and acidic to bring all the freshness up a level, and the micro greens paired nicely with the plump green lentils.
What I liked about this salad was the variety of tomatoes on offer. They were almost like the Heritage/Heirloom tomatoes that I am familiar with from the UK. The variety of size, colour, taste, and texture was delightful. I'd order this again, for sure.
Truffle Mushroom Risotto
I wasn't wild about this. The texture was great, and the flavour was most certainly mushroom, but it almost feels like an insult to call this a 'Truffle' risotto. Furthermore, raw cacao nibs have absolutely no place on a mushroom risotto, in my view. The mushrooms were plentiful and overall pretty good. I was quite intrigued by the fact that some looked almost like tinned mushrooms, whereas others looked fresh, but this could also have been the difference in the mushroom variety that made me think this.
The risotto itself had a sticky texture that I like in risotto, but it could have been done with a bit of sprinkled parmesan on top and maybe a little bit of butter to give it that glossy sheen. Although it was nice enough, I wouldn't order it a la carte.
Hearty Bolognese
As slapdash as the presentation looks, this was probably one of the nicer dishes on the set for 4. With vegetarian food, I often feel like there's a compromise on the depth of flavour. However, this Hearty Bolognese at Little Tree Food almost proved me wrong. Almost. The tomato sauce was slightly under-seasoned, but the sprinkling of parmesan on top helped to balance it out, somewhat. Maybe this was even by design?
The soft poached egg on top gave way to releasing lovely yolk all over the spaghetti, and the dish was nicely fresh. I liked this a lot.
Neo Margherita
Whether this is a vegetarian pizza or not, I feel like this is an insult to pizza... Therefore, it makes me feel really bad when I say that I actually quite liked it! If this was not in the traditional circular shape of a pizza, then it should be rebranded as a flatbread, where it wouldn't be masquerading as something that it just really isn't.
Flavour-wise, it was good. The tomato and pesto base mixed together nicely and tasted fresh. The toppings were tasty enough, and they added a good texture to the Signature Set for 4.
Salted Caramel Chiffon Cake
Fluffy, airy, tasty, creamy. All of those words are applicable here. You can see that the cake has been sectioned off into layers, with (quite visibly, actually) the top layer being deliciously light and fluffy, followed by a slightly less fluffy and light layer, then finished with quite a dense layer on the bottom. This is probably just down to the weight of the cake pushing down on the bottom layer, but it did add a different texture that was probably not desired. The Chantilly cream wasn't sweet at all, and the caramel flavour was allowed to come through both in the cream and the topping really nicely.
Earl Grey Chiffon Cake
Fluffy, airy, tasty, creamy. All of those words are still applicable here. A similar issue exists in the textures here, but it doesn't detract from the flavour at all. The earl grey flavour comes through nicely with a wonderful flowery fragrance so quintessentially earl grey. The chocolate cookie crumbs on top weirdly worked, but I think maybe some form of lemon might have gone slightly nicer with the earl grey.
Cold Press Juice
The juice was fine. On the left you have the 'Berry Burst', and on the right, you have the 'Tropical Delight'. They weren't in any way sweet, which was good, but they weren't particularly memorable.
The bottom line
Is it worth it? Yes, I really enjoyed Little Tree Food vegetarian food. As I said before, I don't often go out for vegetarian food in Taipei, so when I do it's because it has good ratings and is talked warmly about.
Would I go back? I would, yes. But maybe I wouldn't rush back. I think if I go back the second time, I would probably go a la carte, rather than a signature set meal. The sets are great value, but some things we ordered I wouldn't be bothered about ordering again.
What was the best dish? The Truffle Tots were pretty good, and the salad was also pretty good, but the best dish was probably the Korean-style fried cauliflower. I don't see enough of that in Taiwan, but I want to see more!