Located in a slightly isolated part of Singapore, Nature Vegetarian Delight is indeed a delight for a vegetarian looking to try out some Chinese/Malay food in Singapore. It is an all-vegetarian restaurant with a menu filled with plenty of traditional Tze Char dishes, popular Chinese delicacies, and Malay food. We had read a lot about this restaurant in various food blogs and reviews. So, on day 2, we decided to pay a visit and sample the food for ourselves.
We arrived here in an unexpected manner, due to some interesting events that happened on day 2. We took the MRT to Serangoon station and then walked to the Upper Serangoon shopping center, which is where the restaurant is located. Having made that trip, I can definitely recommend you not to walk from the station. Instead, take bus 107/107M, or 81 (if taking from exit B of the station). It will be so much more comfortable than walking almost 1km. Plus, when we were walking, it was raining. By the way, they also have a branch at Hougang.
We got to the restaurant at almost 3 p.m. So, the restaurant was not busy at all. It was located on the 4th floor of the shopping center. As we were talking to the server, we found out that the restaurant was actually owned by a Malaysian national. A lot of the staff was Malaysian as well as Chinese. Hence, the menu had a distinct Malaysian influence. Popular Malay food items like Roti-Prata and Sambal were on the menu. The restaurant was quite spacious and had seating for at least 60-80 people.
We ordered the sweet and sour pork (vegetarian of-course, no pork in it), a hotplate tofu, and some Hong Kong fried noodles. The food did not take very long to arrive. The sweet and sour pork was basically a dish with chunks of soy protein cooked and covered in the classic sweet and sour sauce that is ubiquitous in Chinese cooking. It has some red and green peppers along with a sprinkling of sesame seeds for a nice-looking garnish. The taste was more sweet than sour. In fact, a little too sweet for our liking.
(sweet and sour pork – SG$9 for small portion)
The hot plate tofu was perhaps the best dish of all. It was made in the traditional iron hot plate. The pieces of tofu were soft as silk. They were literally breaking as we picked them up. They melted in our mouths within seconds. It was high-quality tofu indeed. The sauce was a sweet and savory thick brown liquid. There were small chunks of wheat/soy protein in the hotplate tofu which were imitating the minced pork that is added to traditional hotplate dishes. The sauce was again a little bit on the sweeter side and it could have been less sweet in our opinion. It reminded us of eating food in Gujarat, where sugar is used liberally in almost everything that one eats out there.
(hotplate tofu – SG$10 for small portion)
Finally, the Hong Kong fried noodles were quite good as well. They were not sweet! They were tossed and stir fried in a wok and had a few vegetables in it. Interestingly, they came with a side of jalapenos, which was quite unique. I have never seen jalapenos with noodles before. Perhaps, it was a proxy for “chilly” to spice things up a bit.
(Hong Kong fried noodles – SG$4.5)
Overall, it was a decent meal. I only called it decent because the over-sweetness in a couple of the dishes kept the meal from being excellent. Perhaps, if Nature Vegetarian Delight get the balance of sugar and other flavors right, then this place can potentially be one of the best places in the city for vegetarian Singaporean-Chinese food. However, I would still recommend this place to anyone who is visiting Singapore and wants to eat vegetarian. I personally would love to try more of its dishes, as there were so many. All of them are probably not as sweet as the ones we ordered. Check out their extensive menu to know what I mean. By the way, its not just the vegetarian who came here. Some of the best written reviews of this restaurant are from people who eat meat all the time. Meat eaters come here because the food is so well prepared. So definitely check out Nature Vegetarian Delight when you are in Singapore.
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Items: Nature Vegetarian Delight – Serangoon, Singapore
Price: Around SGD 25 for three dishes (INR 1250 in 2018)
Location: 756 Upper Serangoon Rd, Upper Serangoon Shopping Centre #04-01, Singapore 534626
Telephone: +65 6286 8028
Timings: 11 am to 9:30 pm Tuesday to Sunday, Monday Closed (may also be closed on Public Holidays and 1st, 15th of the month as per Lunar Calendar)
Type: Food/All-Vegetarian Restaurant
How to get there: Serangoon MRT Station, then walk 1 km or take either of bus numbers 80, 81, 82, 101, 107, 107M, 136, 153 for bus stop 63011 and 63019.
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Phoren Yatra 
[…] The Botanical Garden at Singapore is excellent and a highly recommended visit in our opinion. Keep in mind that you will have to walk a lot (2 km to and fro between the station and garden and then a good 1-2 km inside the garden). By the time we were done, it was lunch time. We decided to get the famous dim sum and hotpot buffet at Ling Zhi, Novena Velocity. We took the blue and red lines to get there. However, when we reached, we discovered that there was a wedding function going on and the restaurant was closed to outside visitors. It was a big disappointment. But, we had many other food options and one of them was at Serangoon, which wasn’t too far away from Novena. We headed to Nature’s Vegetarian Delight – a place famous for its Tze Char Chinese cooking. The place was a good 20-minute walk from Serangoon station. It felt more like 40 mins after all the walking at the Botanical Garden. On top of that, it was raining as well! Our entire schedule was thrown out of gear and we ended up having lunch at 3 pm. The lunch was pretty decent, all items on the menu were vegetarian. The cooking was so good that even meat eaters frequent this place. Review of the restaurant is posted here. […]