One man's meat...

...can turn out to be a Chinese soy.

"I want the shredded pork. And then, beef and chicken in lemon sauce," my friend Vijay tells Adam, our Chinese companion, as they begin running their eyes down the long menu. "Do you want to sample the squid rolls or the stir fried crab ?" he asks me. "Or both?"

I am a little flummoxed. We are dining at the Jujube Tree, a simply laid out, very busy restaurant in Shanghai's expat-heavy Gube area. Vijay is a Marwari and a strict vegetarian. Yet, he is ordering the most exotic non-vegetarian dishes like they are going out of fashion. Then it dawns on me. "Let me see the menu," I reach out.

Zao Zi Shu or Jujube Tree is a chain of "Vegetarian Lifestyle" restaurants, three of which are in Shanghai and one in Ningbo city, not far away. Founded by a Taiwanese couple, Jujube Tree is part of a growing tribe of restaurants in China and overseas, serving pure vegetarian Chinese food.

With a slight difference. The vegetarian dishes in these restaurants are cooked and laid out in such a manner they resemble popular Chinese non-vegetarian dishes. The resemblance and flavour is so startling that you actually believe you are eating the real (non-veg) thing.

It also dawns on me that I did visit a similar restaurant in Beijing last year, but did not really notice the vegetarian emphasis. Actually, Jujube Tree (pronounced zao zi shu in Chinese) means "become a vegetarian as soon as possible".

"Vegetarian meat" is believed to be centuries old (apparently, it originated in Buddhist monasteries) but speciality restaurants cropped up only in recent years. Older Chinese have taken to it quickly. Now, vegetarianism has found fancy with the young, health-conscious lot as well. Particularly in this format.

Jujube Tree's promoters feel a vegetarian lifestyle contributes to spiritual and physical well being.

A restaurant pamphlet enlightens you further: "A vegetarian diet reduces the risk of blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and and high blood pressure." So it's a mission. The restaurant is a venue for discussing vegetarian lifestyle issues like organic agriculture. A small shop selling organic foods and herbs is attached to it.

And just in case you were not fully convinced, a small board next to the door adds that this restaurant is no-smoking. No alchohol, eggs or meat. And no MSG either. And to warm you to the proposition, fruits like watermelon are served as appetisers. Accompanied by "pure water"and organic tea.

Emboldened and educated, I join the ordering frenzy. Start with shelled shrimps and deep fried (veg) duck, both dishes I don't fancy much in their original form. In China, ordering dishes is a long and complicated process.

A conversation with the waiter takes on the appearance of a complex and strategic negotiation. Hopefully, the result of this engagement is dinner. Served in time. For most Chinese, dinners are to be had around 6 to 7 pm. The drinking and merry making, if any, comes later.

Adam says he wants to ensure we order a few more dishes so we can sample liberally. Actually, much of Chinese dining (as seen from an Indian perspective) can pass for an involved sampling exercise ! Albeit in large portions. So, we order veg squid rolls, shelled shrimps and stir fried pork as well. And wait.

The procession of dishes begins shortly. After the first nine dishes have arrived, I ask Adam if this is it...as in, I hope this is it. "No," he says, "there is more." Soon our table is packed with what seems like the restaurant's entire repertoire of fake-meat dishes.

I look around to see if our heightened activity is attracting any attention. Not really, the tables around us are overflowing as well.

I begin with the beef and dabble with the pork. Both look like the real thing, the texture is similar too. It must be taking some amazing culinary engineering to create this.

The common ingredients I can gather are soyabean protein extract, taro powder, mushrooms and bean curd. But brought together in a manner that defies imagination.

And then the eels. I don't know what the original is like but this is most fishy. Dabbed with large amounts of soy "" a standard offering in most Chinese dishes. There was just one real veg dish among the 20 I, think. As in, it looked and tasted purely vegetarian. The crab, on the other hand, is made of carrot, radish and potato paste.

As we stagger out a good hour-and-a-half later into a chilly Shanghai evening, Adam tells us that while vegetarian meat restaurants are a rage, most Chinese he knows want to experiment a little further. "With what?" I ask. "Obviously, Indian food," he says.