Do Chay: Vegetarian Vietnamese food in Vancouver

Do Chay is a Vietnamese restaurant located in Vancouver. They only offer vegetarian/vegan dishes.

Now I don’t venture out to vegetarian or vegan restaurants very often because I am not vegetarian or vegan, but I am open to giving these restaurants a try. This review is based on an in-dining experience.

Interior

The interior is very cute and trendy. They have wooden benches and black chairs (not the most comfortable) that look very modern and natural. I love the brick wall and the interesting art they have on their walls.

Because we dined during covid, tables were spaced out. The restaurant itself is quite small so they can’t seat a lot of people.

Appetizers

Salted egg yolk eggplant ($13)

This share plate is gluten free and can be made without onion and garlic at your request. The eggplant is fried until crispy with salted egg butter, chili garlic and cilantro.

I love eggplant – I find it such an underrated vegetable. One of my favourite dim sum dishes is actually deep fried eggplant, so I find this share plate very unique in the way they use salted egg yolk to fry it. Salted egg yolk is also a very trendy food item right now. We now have salted egg yolk popsicles, chips, cookies (the cookies are so good!!), etc.

So this appetizer is delicious because it has all my favourite things. The eggplants are big and juicy and the batter on the outside is crispy and dry with a subtle flavour of the salted egg yolk. After awhile, it does taste just kind of like a normal deep-fried eggplant dish though as the salted egg yolk flavour is not too strong.

Mains

We share everything (2 mains and 1 appetizer).

Banh xeo crepe ($15)

I have never tried this before but in the picture you see, it looks like a giang egg omelette. It is a turmeric crepe with sprouts, jicama, mushroom, herbs and greens. This is vegan and gluten free.

The server explains how to eat this dish. You cut up a piece of the crepe and then wrap it in the greens provided. It can sound confusing because I thought I would wrap the greens in the crepe but it is actually the other way around.

So this dish is really yummy and unique because I’ve never tried this before. The inside of the crepe is mostly filled with jicama, which is like a Mexican yam (potatoes again to the rescue). It gives it a slightly crunchier texture but mixed with the mushroom and herbs, creates a very balanced and savoury flavour.

Also this dish is huge – great to share.

Satay noodles ($14)

This noodle dish was the one I was looking forward to trying hte most, but so far the other 2 dishes had already pleasantly surprised me.

Do Chay’s satay noodles have a peanut and sesame spicy satay, but it is not really spicy at all so don’t worry about spice levels. The broth is creamy and on the thicker side (compared to pho broth) and have broccoli, seitan, tomato and flat rice noodles.

Seitan is a vegan meat substitute made entirely out of hydrated gluten. To be honest, I had no idea what I was eating but it did remind me of meat when I tasted it in this noodle.

The peanut satay broth was lovely and like the crepe, the bowl was big – great for sharing. Broccoli is cooked well and I couldn’t really find/taste the tomatoes too much.

Final thoughts

So I’ll admit that I am a biased towards vegetarian and vegan restaurants because I wonder why I go when I am not vegetarian or vegan. But Do Chay really exceeded my expectations! Everything was delicious, reasonable prices and big portions and I also felt really healthy eating there.

It was also fun to learn about new foods and ingredients such I am not super knowledgeable about vegetarian and vegan cuisine. I did a lot of googling in this post haha.

I think it is quite hard sometimes to make delicious food without meat. I feel like if you get a good cut of meat and just season it correctly, the dish almost makes itself but with vegetables, you really need to work hard to get delicious flavours out. To make veggies the star of the dish requires a lot more expertise and effort and I think Do Chay has done a wonderful job in bringing out the flavours of vegetables in an authentic Vietnamese way.

Sincerely, Loewe