She likes to tap into the memories food creates, that deep sense of nostalgia that dim sum provides, for example, while accounting for dietary restrictions, allergies, and environmentalism. She worked with a vegan food company in Hayward, with Indigo Burger in Newark, and has done lots of consulting gigs. Ly, who’s vegan, owned a number of Thai restaurants before she dove into plant-based cooking and living. Menny Ly Vegan dim sum is a rarity even within San Francisco’s popular plant-based scene. Less than a month in, the restaurant is already making fleet upon fleet of vegan dim sum dishes. Mushroom, used in dishes like the truffle rice roll, play a big role, too, to bring that meaty umami to bear. The dumplings were mainly vegetable-based, but the siu mai riff used Impossible Meat and the shrimp dumpling featured a soy-based alternative. It worked: the cooks took to the recipes like fish to water. “We decided to take the menu items and, with my past experience, brought them to the chefs,” Ly says. Yen was giddy when she remembered her childhood friend was vegan. The friends only thought to try out vegan dim sum when Yen kept hearing a desire for meat alternatives from regular customers. Now, the vegan options are available on the regular menu, though the already-popular baked mochi buns are only available on weekends. ![]() They started the vegan dim sum with a kickoff event, which was a hit. The tea house and restaurant has been in operation for 28 years, and the original owners have passed it to their daughter Elaine Yen, one of Ly’s best friends. That’s thanks to restaurant consultant Menny Ly who just started rolling out an all-plant-based menu on March 19 at her friend’s family’s restaurant Imperial Garden Seafood Restaurant. On the oft-overlooked food corridor of San Bruno Avenue in the Portola neighborhood lies one of San Francisco’s only reliably vegan dim sum options.
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