Review: Tian Yian Cafe & Restaurant

Tian Yian Cafe & Restaurant is a vegetarian restaurant located in Taman Miharja, Cheras. Tian Yian is not your typical vegetarian restaurant serving Chinese style vegetarian fare. As you would have noticed in their name, they're also a cafe serving Western vegetarian food like pizza, burger, steaks (yeah, steaks but using mock meat!), eggless vegetarian cakes in all sorts of flavours, fluffy buns and healthy breads. Other than these, local dishes like nasi lemak and a variety of noodles are available as well. Tian Yian also have an extensive drink list in their menu leaning towards Taiwanese style drinks like bubble tea, smoothie and juices. This cafe cum restaurant is clean and has a very pleasant decor and environment. A perfect place to have a drink with a slice of cake!

At our recent visit there one afternoon, hubby ordered a few Chinese dishes to be served with white rice. They do have set meals for as few as 4 people to 10 which are pretty reasonable in terms of price. Since there were just 2 of us and boiboi, the waiter told us that we can pick which ever dishes we fancy from the set. So hubby went on ordering a couple of dishes that the waiter recommended and a soup. I specifically asked for the mutton curry rendang which is really hearty and yummy with white rice.

The waiter recommended this Sar Cha Soup (RM5.50). Sar Cha is a type of sauce/paste which the Taiwanese named it barbeque sauce. The Taiwanese usually use this as their steamboat soup base. I'm not very sure what's the make of this sauce and I can't really describe its flavour and taste. It's something that one need to take some time to adjust to the taste. This soup came with tofu, vegetables, seaweed and mock fishball which is really bouncy and tasted quite close to normal fishball. I wonder how they make the taste so real! The portion given is enough to serve 3-4 soup bowls, quite generous here I would say.



Here's Tian Yian's signature Mutton Curry Rendang (RM10.00) that came with many pieces of tender mock mutton meat and potatoes. As I've mentioned earlier, this rendang is very hearty, fantastic with white rice. This is something that I won't miss ordering each time I dine here.



Hubby had wanted a vegetable dish and waiter recommended this. Since the waiter is of a foreign nationality, it's kinda hard to understand what he explained. All we were told was it's made of beancurd sheets (foo chuk) with some greens on its side. I nearly fainted when it came since it's quite a large portion for the 2 of us. Can't imagine eating so much foo chuk! Eh but when we dug in, underneath the foo chuk, there were meen karn (a type of gluten), mushrooms, baby corns, bell peppers etc. No wonder the name in the receipt for this dish was 8 Treasure With Vegetables (RM18.00). This dish is very ching (literally clear), a total contrast of the rendang. A hint of Chinese herbs can be detected in the gravy. Nice!



Since boiboi is with us, we need to order something tasty for him. Waiter recommended this mock meat coated with mayonnaise like sauce topped with almond slivers (RM15.00). This dish is a winner with boiboi. I think he ate 4 - 5 pieces of the mock meat alone. The sauce that coated the mock meat was not overly creamy and compliments well with the deep fried mock meat. Definitely another must-order dish in my list now. Sorry for the blurry pic cos I was in a hurry to snap a pic before hubby tuck in and/or roll his eyes.



I've tried some of the fried noodles and pizza on my previous visits. I have to say their pizza looked and tasted like the real thing. I'm not really sure if the cheese they've used is of the vegetarian kind since my colleague does take dairy products in her vegetarian diet. She was the one whom highly recommended the pizza. The pizza is about 10 inches or could be 12, hence should be shared instead of stuffing it down alone! Don't say I didn't warn you!!! Haha...

For all the above, 2 portion of rice (RM1.00 each), 2 glasses of iced lemon tea (RM4.00 each) plus 5% Government tax, the bill came to RM61.43. You might say it's a tad pricey for the two and a half of us but I have to say the portion is actually good enough for 3 - 4 adults. We actually did managed to wipe out everything, thank goodness for the small portion of rice. *Ahem* You can actually call both of us GLUTTON! We have to skipped dinner that day after this late lunch.

Watch out for piping hot bakes like mock meat floss bun, breads, baos and pastries at the cashier counter. These stuff flies off the shelves very quickly, so do grab some before you leave. Their mock meat floss bun is absolutely Heavenly! It's very soft and fluffy like Japanese style breads. They're now selling vegetarian mooncakes for the festive season. If I'm not mistaken, they have a branch in Taman Petaling Utama called Sky De Cafe which my friend said is a popular choice for vegetarian couples to hold their wedding banquets.

Now, how to get there??? It would be the easiest to come from the city centre along Jalan Loke Yew. When you are approaching Plaza UE3, keep to your left and follow the detour on the left. Be careful here since there are a lot of road works going on to widen the road. Look out for the first right junction and turn in. You'll see 2 rows of shophouses. Make a left turn (the inner row) and drive towards the end of the shophouses. You can see many hawkers along the road divider. Tian Yian is on your left occupying 2 shoplots. You can see their name in green on the signboard above the shoplots.

Tian Yian Cafe & Restaurant
5, 7 & 9, Jalan 3/93,
Taman Miharja, Jalan Cheras,
Kuala Lumpur
Tel: (603)9281 8837
Opening hours: 11am - 9pm

Technorati Tags: vegetarian + malaysian food