I made air quotes AS I ORDERED the sweet-and-sour “pork” ($10.95), in case the server, you know, misunderstood. As my friend pointed out, I needn’t have worried, since Teapot Vegetarian House maintains a vegan kitchen. Still, it felt a little odd asking for pork—sorry, “pork”—at a kosher restaurant.
The Teapot is one of 14 area eateries certified kosher by Va’ad HaRabanim of Greater Seattle (an association of local rabbis), and one of just two kosher Asian restaurants in the city proper (Queen Anne’s Bamboo Garden is the other; the rest are on the Eastside). Adding up the segments of the population who might favor a place like this—strict vegans, people who keep kosher, people who enjoy creative Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese food—it makes sense that such an unlikely spot could survive, for 16 years and counting, in an open-minded dining district like Capitol Hill.
Of course, two of the Teapot’s main hooks—its kosher certification and all-vegan menu—have only been in place for seven years. According to owner Cathy Jones, the decision to go vegan had mostly to do with her children, who began avoiding animal products around that time. The transition to kosher status occurred in response to requests from Jones’ Jewish customers.
A typical evening at the Teapot might find an observant Jew in a yarmulke chowing down on “abalone” in black bean sauce ($8.95) while, in a neighboring booth, multiply pierced punk kids in “Meat Is Murder” T-shirts go to town on Mandarin crispy “beef” ($9.95). Though the menu includes plenty of all-vegetable options, at least half the regular dishes feature plant-based meat substitutes, including faux duck, beef, chicken, smoked salmon, and the aforementioned pork and abalone.
The “pork” in the Teapot’s excellent sweet-and-sour sauce is made from soy and compressed shiitake mushrooms; while it certainly doesn’t taste like real pork, its textural and visual verisimilitude is remarkable. Though I haven’t had actual sweet-and-sour pork in more than a decade, this meatless version convinced me that the secret’s in the sauce. Beneath bell peppers, onions, pineapple chunks, wood ear mushrooms, and a tangy, tomato-based sauce, who could say whether the “meat” I was eating had once romped and oinked in a pen or had simply grown underfoot in a forest somewhere?
If the “pork” was a guilty pleasure, the rose “chicken” ($11.95) was a triumph of presentation. “Little drummettes of gluten and tofu” may sound unappealing, but the Teapot cleverly wraps the “meat” around short, thin pieces of sugarcane, recalling a Vietnamese tradition while simulating the meat-on-bone effect of actual chicken drummettes. And the taste? Less than convincing, chickenwise, but pleasantly smoky, with a springy texture that resisted the teeth and hit the spot. A dipping sauce flavored with rose tea sat in a bowl in the center of the plate, with drummettes and rose petals alternating in a ring around the outer edge. Still not chicken, but not the stereotypical slab of boring tofu, either.
Vegetarian fare has come a long way since the mid-’90s, when I stopped eating red meat; these days, avoiding anything that clucks, moos, or rolls in mud is no excuse for boring cuisine.
The Teapot has created the best kind of fusion: Asian food no less satisfying for being meat-free, kosher food outside the typical, deli-style norm, and a vegan menu you could order from every day for a month, à la Super Size Me, without having the same thing twice. Add dinnertime delivery for orders of $15 or more, and you have something you can really sink your herbivorous teeth into.
Teapot Vegetarian House, 125 15th Ave. E., 206-324-2262. CAPITOL HILL. 11:30 a.m.–10:30 p.m. daily (dinner and delivery: 5–9:30 p.m. daily).
