Tofu Skin

One of my favorite ingredients is tofu skin or what I usually call beancurd sheet. Tofu skin may be a misnomer as it is actually derived from soy milk. Anyway, the reason I love tofu skin is that its dried and tasteless nature allows it to absorb the sauce of whatever it is cooked with. At home, we usually do a simple dish with dried mushrooms, carrots and a light soy sauce. Before I became a vegetarian, I always used to have beancurd roll in dimsum places. As the name connotes it's basically a combination of veggies and pork wrapped in the sheet and steamed with a light sauce. Here are some vegetarian preparations of the tofu skin I've encountered recently:

Nomnomnom's crispy tofu skin on a tub of rice. It comes with a thick sauce but the dish still seemed a little bland. The pieces were also too crispy and a bit hard to chew.

Since Nomnomnom has been mentioned, I'd like to share the only dish I liked from there, fried mushroom and spinach ravioli. However, even this was not especially noteworthy.

I think Nomnomnom's appeal lies in its kitschy interior and the abundance of vegetarian choices in their menu. The restaurant doesn't serve any beef. Nomnomnom is located on the corner of E Rodriguez and Tomas Morato behind the 24-hour Persian place.

I found this sizzling tao pao from Happy Veggie to be far more appetizing. It is mix of diced celery, mushroom, and carrots wrapped in a thick swath of tofu skin, where only the outermost layers are crispy, then served with light soy sauce.

Happy Veggie serves only Chinese vegetarian dishes. It is different from Bodhi in that Happy Veggie serves some fusion dishes such as the burger on rice and some more complicated dishes such as sukiyaki and hotpot. It also sells some frozen vegetarian items such as veggie meat, chips and siopao. It is unfortunate that its Banawe branch had been closed down a while back. The only Happy Veggie branch now is located all the way downtown along Masangkay Street in Binondo.

Another one of my tofu skin finds, well it was actually discovered by my friend, is the soy chicken in Greens (not in the pictures). It is very similar to Nomnomnom's crispy tofu skin except that it is made to look and taste very much like soy chicken.