Garden Fresh Chinese Vegan Cuisine
| Address: | 1245 W El Camino Real, Mountain View, CA 94040, USA |
| Phone: | +1 650-254-1688 |
| Site: | gardenfresh.us |
| Rating: | 4 |
| Working: | Closed 11:30AM–2:30PM 11:30AM–2:30PM 11:30AM–2:30PM 11:30AM–2:30PM 11:30AM–2:30PM 11:30AM–2:30PM |
Location
Photos 100
Reviews 14
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Kristin C.
I love meat and have often fought with my sister over restaurant options when she was vegetarian. However, Garden Fresh was a place that we could always agree on. The fake meat here is tasty enough to satisfy the carnivore within. Many of the dishes can be hit or miss in terms of flavor but the standouts are anything but bland. Our favorites are Kung Pao Eggplant, Orange Veggie Chicken, Veggie Ham, and Veggie Chicken Curry. Be wary during entree selection. Some of the sauces and fake meats are repeated throughout the menu so you may end up with variations of the same dish. I always like to double check with the waitress to make sure this doesnt happen. Its a very casual place with limited seating. The owner is very friendly and food comes out quickly though they can get overwhelmed when the restaurant is crowded. Parking in the lot is limited. A friend mentioned that this is the sister restaurant of Garden Fresh in downtown Palo Alto. Im not sure if this is true but I heard that the wife operates one location and the husband operates the other. Avoid: Spinach Linguine Salad with Sesame dressing (It used to be a favorite but its become quite bland and they have become stingy with the sesame sauce). The happy family and orange beef were not great when compared to the other dishes. Tip: Dont order soup because they usually give you a complimentary one after you place your order (its happened to me during both lunch and dinner). The default soup is corn and tofu but Ive substituted for the hot and sour on occasion.
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A Private User
- Today I ordered brown rice and mixed vegetables. The mixed vegetables were frozen peas and carrots like what they have in frozen foods at Safeway---all the carrots are the uniform little cubes---both the look and taste are unmistakable. They werent even generous with them, serving only a meager amount mixed in with a large amount of brown rice. I would have left but suffered through being there to avoid embarrassing, my sensitive vegan daughter. Her dish was some kind of fake chicken (made from gluten) and sauce. I tried some of hers and thought it tasted horrible, though I tried one of their gluten veggie burgers years ago which tasted passable. A smiling waitress continuously walked by and said things like, "is everything all right?" and "why you not eating your food?" Though Im not vegan, Ill sometimes go for days preparing delicious, purely vegan food at home and be satisfied. Oddly, there seems to be a scarcity of good vegan or vegetarian restaurants around here, which is the only way I can explain the popularity of this restaurant! Something like, beggars cant be choosers.
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Aaron Lawson
Im vegan and I live across the street from this place, so Ive eaten here a lot. Definitely hit or miss -how a dish is done differs from day to day, with some items being great one day and blah the next. The scallion pancakes are always good, the lemon chicken can be pretty bad,in fact most everything on the menu can be great or bad, depending on the day. The one in Palo Alto serves the same food but is much more consistent, Ive eaten there about ten times and its always been decent. If the food here were always the same, and always the top of their game stuff it would really take off and be an easy 5 stars!
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Steve Means
This place was in walking distance of where I was at for a business trip. Im always on the lookout for good vegan food. I sat down, immediately identified I wanted the mongolian chicken. It had to have been no more than 5 minutes from ordering to a hot plate in front of me. Comes with brown rice standard. Super fast, cheap and absolutely delicious! A big enough plate to satisfy without being super heavy. Im gonna be working at the same place next week and Ill be back eating here without question! Only downside would be the size, its a tiny place. I cant imagine it seats more than 25 people or so.
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A Private User
This place used to be awesome. However their quality has substantially degraded over time. The quality and taste of food has deteriorated considerably. The portion sizes have reduced. The best waitress has left. She was awesome. The current one does not match her in any fashion. The last I went here was on a Friday evening and the restaurant was crowded and these people CAN NOT handle crowd. So the service was really poor and the staff was visibly irritated. I had a really poor experience. I will not go here again.
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A Private User
This used to be my favorite vegitarian restaurant, but the past several times Ive come here, the food tasted different. Some of the dishes which used to be my favorites (such as the vegi ribs and the duck) taste different and arent nearly as delicious now. The food is still good, but its not as good as it used to be. Ill have to try the location in Palo Alto, maybe their old cook moved there...
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David D
Ive been coming to Garden Fresh since back in the early-2000’s. Though theres been a change in ownership, the food and atmosphere are generally the same. Flavors are good, though portion size has definitely become smaller while prices seemed to have increased. Service is a little slow, but friendly. Overall, good place for a nice variety of vegetarian dishes with good flavor.
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Jack Boyce
The food here is excellent and 100% vegan. Our favorite is the Orange Veggie Beef. Prices arent cheap but are reasonable given the quality of the food. My only wish is that they had more fresh vegetable dishes on the menu; they skew pretty heavily toward meat-substitute dishes. If youre a vegan/vegetarian who "misses" meat then you will love this restaurant.
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Jade Wang
Small, hole-in-the-wall vegan Chinese restaurant. The fake meat is surprisingly good, but they have tofu and vegetable dishes, too, if thats not your thing. The brown rice fried rice is nice, and I like the Tofu Delight. Ive taken meat eaters here, and theyve been pleasantly surprised. I think they offer vegan ice cream for dessert, too.
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Greyson Parrelli
Great vegetarian food! Chinese food, specifically General Tsos chicken, is probably the thing I miss most about eating meat. Well, this gets you pretty darn close! The General Tsos is probably closer to a sweet and sour chicken here, but its still amazing. The Kung Pao eggplant is also delicious. You really cant go wrong!
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A Private User
The best vegetarian dishes i ever ate before. Far better than other non vegetarian restaurants. I tried orange chicken kung pao chicken and general chicken they are really fabulous. dont get confused seeing the name of dishes they are purely made of vegetables. but they give the same taste as non-veg dishes doo.
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Aditya Ramabadran
I love Chinese food. But usually theres milk, dairy, etc and gluten in whats there. This VEGAN chinese restaurant is amazing. I love the red super-sweet and sour sauce, and the free soup with your order! Prices are a little more costly than expected, though. Overall, this IS my favorite restaurant!
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A Private User
my first visit here. I had the food (lunch) as take out. By the time they make it ready, they served the soup in place. It took around 5-7 mins for the packed food to come. Good food quality, neat packaging. I wouldnt give it 5-star for ambiance though it was lunch time and its hard to rate it.
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A Private User
Food is good. Just check your bills after eating. They have a habit of charging for everything, starting with container charges for to go food etc. Since we questioned them for the bill, the quantity packed for our togo food was compromised. Honesty should be the best policy.
