Not many customers appeared at Tiffin Vegetarian Cafe on the third floor of Shanghai Times Square during mealtime.

The eatery claims to cook "new-style" vegetarian food, different from Buddhist vegetarian cuisine.

Tiffin controls the content of fat, oil and salt, and enriches the body with large amounts of vegetable fibre that is "cleaner" for the waste left in the intestines and the body.

Decorations and arrangements are of Western style, and you can hear the faint sound of flowing water and birds chirping in the background.

The menu provides a limited choice. Each course has a picture and English and Chinese descriptions.

Asparagus and egg roll (28 yuan or $3) was the appetizer. It is similar to Japanese sushi in shape.

Dipped in salad sauce, the roll was light in flavour but refreshing in taste because of the asparagus in the roll.

I ordered baked green pepper with potato, curry and cheese as a hot dish.

Diced potato together with mushroom and curry juice were placed on half a baked pepper, and a layer of cheese was basted on the above. A light fragrance of the fresh pepper mixed with the rich spicy juice of the curry quickly occupied every taste bud of the tongue.

The most special dish was the mushroom soup, which was served in a tiny teapot.

You should drink the soup after it is poured into a cup and then ladle the ingredients out of the pot.

Tasting the lightly pepper-flavoured soup while eating the mushroom and tomato cubes, you cannot imagine that the soup was stewed on a slow fire for five hours or more with various kinds of mushrooms and peas, combining nutrients from all vegetables.

Having an idea that it was a perfect healthy dinner, I ate almost all the food. However, after only about half an hour, my stomach cried with hunger.

The portion of each dish is too small and average price per dish is 30 yuan.

Tiffin Vegetarian Cafe

10:00am to 10:00pm

99 Huaihai Zhonglu

Tel: 6391-0639

( China Daily March 5, 2002)