Vegetarian fit for a king

Sauteed Matsutake on Bodhi leaf (above) is highly recommended in King's Joy as is the fried fox nuts with asparagus tips (below). Zhang Li Mingzhu / For China Daily

Related readings:  Fancy a scorpion?  Seafood and roasts  Pooley's poetry on plates  Haute Italian with color

No meat, but the dishes are exotic, unique and right royally delicious. Ye Jun visits a new restaurant in Beijing that is raising the bar.

If I had the money, I would eat at King's Joy Vegetarian Restaurant every day. Recently, I had the best vegetarian meal I've had for a long time here at a media tasting. But the prices on the menu are so high that I'm not sure I would come back on my own.

We heard about the restaurant long before the tasting. Its reputation was already making the rounds when they were building it and we had looked forward to the tasting.

First of all, it is in a traditional courtyard house built right opposite the Lama Temple, where there are already a few established vegetarian restaurants.

Then, I had heard from food critics who had already visited the eatery that the environment was really good.

The biggest suspense was how good the food was.

Vegetarian restaurants in the capital come and go with great alacrity, and it is not exactly the easiest cuisine to maintain a regular customer base. There is so much competition, and with a location such as this, we reckon it must be quite a challenge for the managers.

Guo Jinping, the general manager of King's Joy, says she is not worried about competition because what her restaurant offers is in a class of its own.