Vegan-friendly
Lacto
Chinese
Fast food
There are two restaurants, at the top of and outside of Ji Ming Temple. Mockmeats and vegetable dishes, starting at cny15. Smoking permitted. Chinese Name: 鸡鸣寺百味斋茶社 Chinese Address: 玄武区鸡鸣寺路1号，20路公交车. Open Mon-Sun 11:00am-5:00pm.
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Ji Ming Temple, Ji Ming Si, Nanjing, Jiangsu (at /off East Beijing Rd), Nanjing, China
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Last update on 09 Mar 2019 by yehadut
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Added by craigmc on 01 Aug 2007
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15 Reviews
First Review by craigmc
Crods
Points +114
great restaurant with good ambience, below an impressive temple - Edit
Easy to find (with an online map). Ate in the main restaurant, just off the main road, below the temple. Good ambience (and nice toilets!). Enjoyed all of the dishes. As usual, ordered too much because it all looked so good in the menu. But managed to just about finish it all, a huge amount, because it was so good. Not the cheapest, but on a par with other quality vegan restaurants in Beijing (in terms of quality and price).
Read morePros: Good food, Easy menu, Good ambience
Cons: Not the cheapest, but worth it
Guest
AlexKolb
Points +441
Very average and not the cheapest - Edit
We found most of the dishes to be very average. It didn’t compare to a lot of places in Shanghai. We went to the restaurant at the very top of the temple. Order at the front desk, choose a table and wait for your number to appear on the display. When it appears collect your food. The asparagus disk was 58rmb and very small, definitely not worth it. The noodle soups were the best. Lots of mock meats but again not as tasty as the mock meat in Shanghai.
Read moreGuest
dtvegan
Points +60
Spectacular food and good prices...highly recommended - Edit
The food was exceptional here. The flavors of the noodle soups and other items were amazing and had a lot of depth. It's understand able why it's so popular with the locals...The restaurant is located at the top level of the temple area, towards the back and overlooks the Nanjing city wall which is worth a visit after your meal. The menu in English is out of date and staff speaks almost no English but everyone was helpful. We enjoyed everything we ordered , even done of the unusual desserts like pumpkin cookies..it's popular with locals and done ordered food to take away with little plastic bags the staff can supply you with Ordering is interesting..you select and pay at the front by the register and then walk to the back area overlooking the wall and wait for your number to be called / pop up on the board as the food comes up via a dumbwaiter from the kitchen on a lower floor. Show the staff there your receipt was helpful as not everything came at the same time and they helped keep track of everything...Also one menu seems to be for lunch and one for dinner but we couldn't be sure since our language skills were limited. Highly recommended!
Read morePros: good variety, exceptional flavors, inexpensive
Cons: hard to discern menu which is also out of date
Guest
yehadut
Points +2089
Top of the temple: nice food - Edit
This is for the fast-food restaurant at the top of the temple, not the sit-down restaurant outside of the temple facing the city wall.
Read moreOrder food and wait for them to call your number, which they may do more than once as each dish you ordered is ready. Food is provided on plastic trays, fast-food style. Had to wait for a table, but turnover was good. The dry pot mushrooms were yummy, as were the wontons. The noodles with veg chicken were very blah, we didn't eat that.
Guest
N3n
Points +238
Outside the temple - Edit
Easy to find, crew is nice and works fast, and the atmosphere is quite magical in a Buddhist way.
Read moreThe main dishes aren't that cheap as the app says, mostly from 35-70¥.
I ordered the pepper "chicken" (#2 on the menu) after reading the recommendations here. The chicken parts were great and chewy, but I was a bit disappointed that a large part of the dish is dry peppers, some with very hot seeds.
My friend took a vegan "steak", served as 4 or 5 flat medium meatballs. It tasted great and the texture was very meaty.
We both also took some simple cheap rice that's not on the menu, which is a great adding to the main dish that helps save some money.
Another friend too a noodle soup which I'm not sure was 100% vegan, and she enjoyed it very much.
Bottom line: food is very well done, just ask if it's spicy, prices are more like $$ and a half, and the place is beautiful and peaceful.
Pros: Great mock meats, Nice atmosphere, Easy to find
Cons: Not very cheap for a Chinese returant, Need to make sure the dishes are 100% vegan
Guest
MonikaZar
Points +148
The one outside the temple - Edit
There are two restaurants with this name, one is inside the Ji Ming Temple and one is just outside. I wanted to visit the one that's inside, however I couldn't find it, so I ended up going to the one that's outside. If you visit the one that's outside, then you don't have to pay the entrance fee for the temple.
Read moreThe restaurant is quite big. The menu is divided according to flavours (spicy, sour, etc). It doesn't have pictures (except for few chosen dishes on the first pages), but there are English translations of the names of the dishes. I recommend vegan pepper chicken, it's really delicious. I wish I could try more dishes as some of them seemed interesting. If I was in Nanjing again I would visit this restaurant again.
Pros: Nice food, interesting dishes
Cons: A bit expensive for what you get
Guest
los_tofu_hermanos
Points +109
Tasty, and good prices - Edit
The mock chicken (I think it was 002 on the menu) was delicious. Very large menu (although not all vegan, so you should ask for no cream/milk/egg)
Read morePros: Very tasty, Good prices
Cons: Not all vegan
Guest
DelaneyClark
Points +33
Phenomenal Mock meat - Edit
Great vegan options MUST TRY IF IN NANJING
Read morePros: Many mock meat dishes!, Must try the red pepper “chicken”
Guest
JulieAtherton
Points +30
nice fake meat - Edit
Had a lovely meal here with friends, 2 of which were meat eaters, and we ordered the fake meat dishes! We had the steak and the peppered chicken and I started to worry it was actual chicken but was assured it was bean product
Read moreThe menu has really bad English translation and some hilarious stuff comes up on the google translate app but we just took our chances.
The veg roll is awful - we thought it would be a spring roll - it's not! It's a cold rubbery thing!
The sweet waterchesnut cashew things were great.
Mushroom soup was basically salty water with mushrooms and leaves in it (I didnt mind it but compared to the fake meats it was so bland)
Dishes are big so be careful not to over order as we did
I'm not sure what people are talking about with the great views as we were sat inside and there didn't seem to be any windows- maybe there's another section we missed?
Pros: amazing fake meats
Cons: don't really know what you're ordering if you don'
Guest
SP
Points +1411
beautiful views - Edit
In order to get to this restaurant, you first have to pay admission to the temple grounds. Once you are up there though, the views are great!
Read moreWe ordered and paid at a counter by the entrance, before we were seated. The staff, both inside and outside, did not speak any English.
The food was nothing special, but also not bad, and it was good to support a vegetarian establishment.
Pros: the views
Guest
shanery
Points +193
not so good - Edit
The food was not tastey, in fact it had that boiled watery taste. Others seem to like it so maybe I was just unlucky with the dishes I chose.
Read morePros: Friendly staff
Cons: Food
Guest
Pitaya
Points +1257
Beautiful experience - Edit
Yes, this place is not in the location being shown on the map. Like said in the previous review: It's actually on the south side of the lake. You should find Ji Ming temple on most tourist maps. And the restaurant is inside the Ji Ming temple, on the top of it. The temple is probably the most beautiful place in Nanjing and the view from the restaurant is great.
Read moreThe restaurant itself is a really simple authentic temple restaurant. The food is really cheap (prices starting from 10 RMB) and really simple. We ordered two bowls of noodles, one with vegetarian mock chicken and another with vegetarian mock duck. Both included just noodles, soup and some tofu/seitan. Noodles were served in simple plastic bowls. But it was quite good. We also ordered one fried rice, which was really oily with some small pieces of vegetables and vegetarian bacon.
You pay at the counter when you enter the restaurant. They have a simple menu with some hand written English translations. No photos or large selection.
So don't expect fine dining or beautiful tableware and wear warm clothes if it's wintertime. But be ready for really unique and authentic Chinese experience with exceptional monastery feeling and stunning surroundings and views.
Pros: Stunning view, Beautiful temple, Authentic experience
Cons: Very simple, Cold in wintertime
Guest
DonPedro
Points +319
friendly staff - Edit
This place is not in the location being shown on the map. It's actually on the south side of the lake. You should find Ji Ming temple on most tourist maps.
Read moreI wouldn't recommend the mock meat dishes very much. It appears to me that they try too hard to visually imitate the meat and in turn miss out on the taste.
Pros: beautiful location overlooking the lake, friendly staff
Guest
eatinggreen
Points +608
Simple but really good - Edit
We enjoyed our brunch stopover at Jinming Temple. After ambling through the temple and attached buildings, which themselves are lots of fun, winding up at this restaurant was the perfect finish.
Read moreWhen we walked into the dining room they appeared to serving up something that might have been a buffet and nothing else (but in hindsight it may have been the set lunch). We prefer to order a la carte, so wandered back out to the entrance area where we found a simple double sided one page menu with English translations. We ordered some dumplings and noodles, received a paper receipt for each, then helped ourselves to a seat and hoped for the best.
The dumplings came out first and were a hit... not a bad start. Then came the noodles.. you know I think they may have been the best we ate in our whole time in China. We weren't really digging the noodles in Shanghai, for the most part they were soggy and limp, but these ones had some structure to them and could hold their own against the vegetable infused soup.
All in all this was a really enjoyable breakfast. Not exactly the place to come expecting a full on balanced meal (we came away craving vegetables) but not bad for what it is. After filling up try walking over the wall to Purple Mountain - a nice walk with great views.
Updated from previous review on Friday November 04, 2011
Pros: prime location , simple but good food, no MSG (i don't think, anyway)
Cons: more veges please!
Guest
craigmc
Points +34852
best in nanjing - Edit
great location, with the view alone making the visit worthwhile.
Read moregreat selection of food, english and picture menu.
variety of veg, beancurd and a lerge selection of mock meat(the veg lemon chicken was mighty fine). staff are very nice and some speak a little english.
dishes start at cny15, and there is also an option of a set meal which is great value.
Pros: great food, great choice, great view
Guest
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