Last October I spent ten days divided between Kunming, Dali, and Lijiang in a region of China I'd long since wished to visit. Before I even set foot in these destinations, and with minimal advance research, I was confident I would thrive as a vegan in Yunnan. If you're planning to trip and are looking for vegan options in these locations, hopefully this post will be helpful. At the very least you'll probably be annoyed by how long it is?
A few notes of in advance. This post is a summary of some vegan options I found in these Yunnan cities, plus a few planning suggestions and personal anecdotes. I'm not saying these are the best places, nor are they listed in any particular order. None of that 'top 7 vegan food finds in Yunnan' bullshit born of eating at 7 places and adopting the sophomoric tones of an influencer.
Furthermore, I don't read nor speak Chinese but when I've been able to find words in simplified Chinese I include them. It's not the braggy flex of instagram bros who want to seem cool; I do it in case you want to copy the names to search for them on map apps, for more information, and/or so can find them if there are no English speakers present during your journey. If you can read the script, please please please let me know if anything is incorrect so I can make adjustments.
Any location links are to Baidu maps. If you're going to China, you'll have to come to terms with different map apps.
Vegan in Kunming
Sù Bǐng Fāng 素饼坊
This is an all vegan bakery (no seating; takeaway only). There's no English, so (like at almost every place you go) you'll be operating on a combination of guesswork and a translation app. I enjoyed a rice crispy like treat, which I think is called fúróng gāo 芙蓉糕 or Sachima 沙琪玛, and is a wee bit like บี้พ้าง. This pastry is comprised of two layers. The first is strands of airy fried dough compacted with sugar syrup into a block, not dissimilar to rice crispy treats in texture. The second is a thick, hypersweet layer of sturdy icing. I recommend having this at around 18:00 so you can spin like a top for a few hours to fight jet lag before crashing out somewhere in between not too early and not too late.
I also bought something like a poria cake as well as some shelf stable mock meats from their small grocery section.
Miaochu Tianxiang Vegetarian Food 妙厨天香素食
I wouldn't have found this place were it not for Baidu maps, so it's a great example of why Happy Cow and Google don't serve you so well in China. There is no English name and no English spoken (and, like nearly everywhere, the menu is Chinese only), but staff were lovely and patient with translation apps. The menu is massive and the portions are generous. IIRC they open at 10am. I loved every single thing I ordered over my three visits.
Cross bridge rice noodles 过桥米线: Oily yet thin textured broth with an aroma of black cardamom. Ingredients included jerky-like gluten meat seasoned with Sichuan peppercorns and dried fried chillies; bean curd skin; fried and battered something that I couldn't figure out at all; crunchy, thinly sliced something that I think was mushroom; blanched pea shoots; local pickled mustard greens; blanched bean sprouts; and gluten.
Hot and sour pea jelly 酸辣豌豆凉粉: Made from the starch of dried yellow peas (like the traditional way of making Burmese "tofu," or like khao raem fun ข้าวแรมฟืน in Thailand), this came served in a warm hot and sour broth that had an underlying note of dried fruit, smokiness from black cardamom, and spiciness from chilli oil.
Douhua mixian 豆花米线, or rice noodles with soft tofu: Most tourists in Yunnan will have (probably) heard of cross bridge noodles, but these tofu noodles are equally ubiquitous. And boy oh boy are they a treat. There's some broth, but not lots, and it's got a slight dark soy sauce flavour with a little sweetness. Eating slippery mixian is like a game of chase in the mouth, with noodles always darting away from the bite. The noodles are topped with a few big silky blobs of free-form tofu, a sesame and white pepper sauce (so says my notes, anyway), mustard green pickles, peanuts, a salty meat mixture, long coriander, chilli sauce, and chilli oil.
Glutinous rice dumplings in brown sugar syrup: These tang yuan are some of the pillowyest I've ever had. They're oozing with black sesame, coated in toasted soybean flour (I think), and topped with sesame seeds.
Huilanxin New Concept Vegetarian Restaurant (Huancheng North Road) 蕙蘭心·新概念素食(环城北路店)
Like many places, you access the (all Chinese) menu by scanning a QR code. Staff were super helpful. One lady used her phone to translate suggestions to me, the top being cross bridge noodles, but I'd already laid eyes some stinky tofu noodles. I responded with translate on my phone that I wanted to try it, and she responded on her device with "but it's very stinky." I gave an enthusiastic thumbs up, she laughed at me, and I wasn't at all disappointed in what arrived at the table ten minutes later. I love stinky tofu, even if it's nearly resulted in divorce ever since I learned to make it myself from Clarissa Wei's book Made in Taiwan (whatever you do, don't open that container of brine indoors. I'm serious).
The presentation of the dish was similar to that of the vegan crossing the bridge noodles, with a bowl of broth accompanied by various sides. These included mushroom (lion’s mane, I think) that tasted minty and salty, mustard green pickle, fried cashews, fried yuba, coriander, and a vegan seasoned meat mixture. The broth was cloudy with only a lick of chilli (your average Brit could handle it) and contained both rice noodles and tofu skin noodles, plus stinky tofu (it wasn't that pungent), tomato, shredded, carrot, small pieces of fried tofu, kombu, and fish mint.
Peach gum/resin soup: This warm, delicate, ever so slightly sweet, gelatinous dessert soup was very floral and comforting. It's more a textural dish, also believed in Traditional Chinese Medicine to have health-giving properties.
Roasted aubergine (烧茄子) stalls in Zhuanxin market 篆新农贸市场
I think this is the location.
Hannah Che wrote of this place on her substack, Little Soybean (worth the subscription price), which is how I found out about this option. There are two stalls, both very similar and close to each other, both serving the same dish. I believe one uses chicken seasoning granules (I could be wrong), but the one Hannah recommends did not have that on the table. Otherwise ingredients were similar. They cut grilled, skinned aubergine with scissors directly into a large som tam style mortar, along with wood ear mushroom, lime juice, cucumber, garlic (in liquid - water I think), sliced red onions, grilled peeled green chillies, grilled red pepper, fresh chillies (or fermented?), toasted soy bean powder, and some other powders (two white – salt, sugar, MSG are all possibilities). I think there’s some fish mint in there too. They also have century egg as an option, so be sure to ask them to omit this.
Even if you don't want to eat this stunner of a salad, you should go for a wander around the market anyway. Even in October (outside of the main season) the mushroom selection was revelatory. I won't even start on the selection of ferments.
Grilled tofu near Green Lake Park
I spotted this hole in the wall while walking down to Green Lake Park (it's gorgeous; you should go). The owners were patient with use of translate apps to ensure the seasonings were vegan. I think it was this place. If not, it's nearby. I don't think this tofu is their main trade, so if there's not someone on the pavement grilling cubes then you'll probably need to look elsewhere.
Tofu was one of the main reasons I visited Yunnan, but I'm still very stumped over this one. I've faffed about with making hairy tofu at home with some starter I ordered from China, so I already had some idea of the flavour, but most people I've shown this photo to say it looks like Baojiang tofu. I ate plenty of Baojiang tofu during my trip, however, and both flavour and texture were wildly different to this. Maybe it's aged or maybe it's a combination. If anyone has any thoughts, please get in touch.
Anyway, so the tofu looked like baojiang tofu but tasted more like hairy tofu, which has a tempeh-esque flavour. Just humble grilled tofu, quite salty, with a twofold dipping option. One was a sesame chilli powder with a sour kick, while the other was a spicy sauce with fish mint root, long coriander, chilli, and (I think) fermented red tofu. This was one of my favourite snacks of the whole trip.
Vegan in Dali
My advice to anyone planning a trip to Dali is to spend more days here than you think you should.
Wu Xiang Song 無相颂
It's considered expensive by local standards, at 93 Yuan (about £10, as of October 2024) per person for all you can eat small plates, but holy smokes this place is S P E C I A L. I couldn't wrap my head around so many of the flavours and textures, many of which were so new to me that I couldn't locate any sort of reference point in my brain. There were heaps of options and I think the menu changes seasonally. I'll just list a few favourites.
- 金汤绣球菌 snow fungus in lantern chilli sauce. Maybe it's not snow fungus. Just a guess.
- 话梅小番茄 salted plum pickled tomatoes
- 依味手撕脆皮 I think this was a vegan take on a Yunnan dish called ghost chicken, with a shredded jerky-like TVP (I think) sharp with lime and chilli. It's very Thai adjacent.
- 芥味秋葵 Okra with some kind of wasabi and/or hot mustard and soy (?) sauce.
- Some sort of cuboid with a white layer in between two thicker layers of green. A bilingual diner at the table next to me asked the staff for more information and they said the green part was pea and the middle part a root vegetable. The texture is potato-like but a little chalkier. Staff said this is very time-consuming to make. It comes served in a sauce that tastes like mango-passionfruit.
- Baojiang tofu on crispy fried mushrooms (?).
Even after I filled my tray, staff continued to bring me more food, including rice, soup, and anything else they thought I might like (if you go near to closing time they may also offer you whatever is left). They had four beverage options: cucumber pear, hawthorn (my favourite), mango, and warm cashew milk. I can't recommend this place highly enough.
For a more in depth review of this place, with better descriptions of the food, see Hannah Che's 21 Little Dishes.
Veggie Ark Saturday market
If you're going to Dali, aim to be there on Saturday for this most impressive vegan market. There's food, beverages, and crafts, along with interesting and interested people. I cannot stress enough how magical this vegan community is. I's one of the most unique places I've ever been and should be a blueprint for vegan community building worldwide. I can't guarantee the same vendors will be there should you visit, but here's a selection of some of the things I ate.
Pea (?) jelly salad: I think this was a type of pea jelly, but I'm not sure because the colour was more grey. There were so many sauces that I couldn't keep track, plus some sort of paste (perhaps nut based?) smeared on the side of the bowl that adds such a creamy richness to the dish. This is another of my favourite meals I had in my entire trip and I wish I knew more about it. I tried to ask someone sitting nearby but they didn't speak Chinese, nor were they familiar with the local cuisine. They were visiting their parents, who lived in the community, and also knew a lot of deeply offensive swears in Thai. I liked them a lot.
Rice milk bar: This is a permanent fixture (as opposed to a market stall). I tried the walnut and rice milk with jujube while one of the local cats commandeered my lap. Someone lovely to talk to, even if they couldn't swear in any language I understood. The bevvie was exceptional too.
Vegan liang pi 纯素凉皮: This market stall served thick, sticky, flat noodles with chilli oil, cumin-heavy TVP mince, some sort of peanut powder blend (it may just be peanut, some of which is ground to powder and some of which is chunky), rocket (or tastes of it anyway), shredded carrot and cucumber, and bean sprouts.
Xiàn Bǐng 馅饼 and Jiang Xiang bing 酱香饼: The former is a savoury sort of hand pie, made with an oily and pliable dough stuffed with a vegetable filling. The latter used the same dough to make a pan fried flatbread. Chinese pastry and dough blows my mind, so I fangirled out and watched them prepared these dishes for at least half an hour.
You can also find Neapolitan style pizzas, soft serve, supermarkets, and other permanent dining spaces. I didn't eat here outside of the Saturday market, but the bigger restaurant has buffets and hot pot from what I was told. They've packed a lot of options into the community, so go explore it. After my phone drama, which I'll explain later, my entire self felt rested after spending an afternoon here. Strangers approached me for chats, invited me to share in their tea, and also there are cats.
好利给山珍过桥米线(龙龛码头店) Cross Bridge Noodles Vegan restaurant by Erhai Lake
Quick note about the location: When I visited, it was across the street (and a little closer to the lake) from where the map location indicates. Maybe it's moved.
I attempted to walk here from the old town, which would have taken quite awhile, but a kind soul stopped midway to offer me a lift on their scooter. They'd been on their way back to town to "rescue some plants," but turned around when they saw me. "I like to help people," they explained. I was happy to walk, but less happy at the spider-monsters living in the greenery along the road, so I accepted the offer.
I had the cross bridge noodles, which featured a rich boletus broth with some fresh mushrooms and rose petals, some thin circle of vegan ham like thing (very bouncy texture, with an alkaline undertone), fried TVP pieces (I think), pea leaf, and golden fungus 金耳 (if you have access to a kitchen then buy this mushroom from a market and eat it with soy sauce and wasabi). I tried to shake the salt shaker into my bowl but it was toothpicks.
正宗开远米线烧豆腐 BBQ place with exploding tofu
Everyone sits communally around a large grill at this place while the guy cooks tofu, potato, and other products, but there is also a separate table (which is where staff directed me). Some locals looked this place up for me after I said I wanted to try some different tofus. Using a combination of a translate app and some text the aforementioned locals wrote to indicate the parametres of veganism, I indicated I wanted the exploding tofu 包浆豆腐.
The waiter/cook/general community maker signalled the number four with their fingers, to which I nodded. They grabbed a ramekin and began to ladle various ingredients in: chilli powder of some sort, ground sichuan peppercorn, salt, and garlic oil. They indicated I could not have the other powder, which I assume were chicken seasoning granules.
The tofu has an tougher outer skin that contains the alkaline softness of melting tofu inside. The flavour is slightly eggish, with heat and seasoning from the dipping powder. They had quite a few other items on the menu that could have also been vegan, but I didn't ask.
幸好道地米线 Vegan noodle place near Dali University
Everyone was so eager to help that I couldn’t look at the menu properly until I translated to every person individually that I needed time (I cannot overstate the general helpful nature I found in people generally, especially in Dali). The chef was insistent I should get the mild soup even though I said I can handle spiciness. In the end I ordered 泡椒酸菜胚芽米线中 pickled pepper and sauerkraut germ rice noodles, which included a Sichuan peppercorn and chilli broth (not very spicy) broth packed with shredded dried mushroom, peanut, pickled vegetables, bamboo, carrot shreds, wood ear mushrooms, gluten intestine, and lettuce.
黄记长沙臭豆腐 Huang's Changsha Stinky Tofu
Some staff at the previous noodle restaurant spoke English, including a friend of the owner who was there to help for a short time but lived elsewhere in China, who suggested we hang out after her shift finished. I never turn down this type of opportunity, so I wandered around (if you turn left out of the restaurant and keep walking until you hit a large road that goes down down down into the city, you'll find a street full of coffee vans) and returned at the agreed upon time to explore. This is one of the places she brought me to.
The tofu is black, though no one could explain to me why this is the case. It’s very good, served with a thick chilli sauce, pickled turnip, and some other chillis plus garlic. It’s less stinky than Taiwanese one and quite cumin heavy. I'm so bored of white people treating stinky tofu as if it's dare worthy in that tone of "ewww disgusting food those other people eat and look at me, so brave for trying it." Piss off with your YouTube videos where you're trying to shock people but all you're doing is being racist while eating food. It's fine if you like it. It's fine if you don't.
Zhong Shang Yuan 众善缘包粥铺
This small space specialises in filled steamed buns, but they also have porridges and some hot drinks. The menu is in Chinese, but the owners are friendly and are happy to spend time going back and forth with translation apps. My favourites were the the walnut soy milk, lichen bao, and wild mushroom bao.
Millet porridge( 小米粥) with fermented tofu (豆腐乳) and pickles (咸菜): The porridge itself is quite plain so it's a great option for those of us who don't always thrive (read: want to punch everyone including self) in the mornings and can't handle much. They have additional toppings you can purchase, like fermented tofu, pickles (salty with a wee taste of sesame), and peanuts. They also have a vat of chilli oil on the counter.
Wild mushroom bun 野生菌包: These were excellent, with the mushroom forward flavour I expected.
Lichen (dipicai) buns 野生地软包: These are kind of the house special, or at least the one item they're most proud of. Made with soy protein, carrots, mushrooms, ginger, probably some other things, and lichen. These are are very labour intensive to make because the lichen is packed with dirt and hence requires many washes before it can be used for food. If you are only getting one thing here, let this be it.
Vegetable buns: I remember these to be excellent, though I didn't take any notes.
Walnut soy milk 核桃豆浆: What a stunner this is. It's a wee bit sweet with the nuttiness of both soy and walnut (perhaps toasted first? I don't know).
Bean porridge: She gave me a complimentary bowl. The red bean porridge has purple glutinous rice, goji berry, and peanut. It’s not very sweet and it's comforting in the cooler evenings.
Rose bean bao 玫瑰豆沙包: I got these for takeaway for the train trip, as well as some brown sugar buns. Rose is a common ingredient around these parts and it pairs gorgeously with sweet red beans.
Dali Three Pagodas
There are a few vegetarian spots inside the complex, perhaps midways up. I can't find them marked on any map, but as you're ascending the complex you'll see one on the right (rice based) and one on the left (noodle based). I probably wouldn't have found the place had I not been adopted by a domestic tourist at a tea house. We didn't speak each other's language, but she was keen for me to have a go at tracing the characters of the heart sutra she was working on, so we did that for awhile and then she invited me lunch. This is where we came. I had a wild mushroom noodle soup that was both wholesome and filling. Even outside of fresh mushroom season, there's so much going on in the food scene with dried varieties.
喜真多·甜品·咖啡 Xijinduo · Desserts · Coffee
Puer tea with two types of glutinous rice dumpings: The two types included bean and rose as well as sesame filling. And then my phone quit on me. Permanently. I'll talk about this more below and why I will never travel without a backup device ever again, especially in China. Anyway I love the concept of serving tang yuan in complex teas, enough so that I set the mid-snack devastation of a dead phone aside to finish them. As I walked back to my hotel (40 minutes! And I remembered the way! Without a phone!), I thought to myself "at least I was able to purchase and eat those dumplings before this happened."
Miscellaneous other vegan options in Dali
Pea porridge 稀豆粉: I got this the morning after my phone died, during which some friends of an acquaintance rescued me and took me for a hot meal. You can order it with or without noodles and you'll find it all over the city in the morning, both from takeaway street cart vendors and in restaurants. There are some toppings you can add yourself, like local pickles, green onion, garlic (garlic water, fresh), peanut, chilli oil... This is a must try in Dali. If you're not sure where to find it, ask anyone.
Vegan in Lijiang
I didn't come here for the food so much as I wanted to visit for reasons of history and because it looked pretty. It's BUSY (UNESCO World Heritage blah blah blah), but if you can force yourself out of bed early the old town is a peaceful place to wander. There's also some great coffee to be had.
Pack good shoes with grip because walking that city is more like hiking, and when it's wet it's like a Slip N Slide (did anyone else have one of those as a kid? Most painful playtimes ever).
吉祥茶客厅·吉祥素食餐厅 Lucky Vegetarian restaurant (Jixiang Vegetarian Restaurant
I was only in Lijiang for two nights and I ate here on both of them. After the first visit, I was so impressed that I decided it wouldn't matter if I didn't come across something vegan the next day because I could just eat more here for dinner. It's a buffet, at which you pay upon entry, collect dishes and fill them with the many items on offer. Surprise, I don't know what most of the dishes were, but I'll describe some of my favourites anyway.
- Free form tofu with savoury toppings (daohua 豆花): This is fresh bean curd, made directly in one container with no pressing. Scoop it out and top it how you'd like. Toppings included items like crunchy fried chickpeas, peanuts, coriander, and chilli paste.
- Fried potatoes with cumin, sesame and chilli
- Slithery, bouncy (pea?) jelly with an eggy alkaline flavour in a spicy salty peanut dressing with cucumber.
- Salty kombu soup with some pulses at the bottom. Mung bean and maybe job’s tears.
- Forbidden rice and bean porridge with sugar on the side so you can punish your teeth if you'd like (I do).
- Some sort of smoky, sour bean stew with a bit of a stewed collards taste. This is sublime, not unlike Mexican style pinto beans.
- Sour plum tea. Fuck me this was good. I think I drank a gallon.
I also had a sublime plate of hot and sour jelly noodles one morning, but I couldn't tell you where it was even if I tried. Keep an eye out and you'll probably find some. Just keep an eye out for pictures as you pass the endless eating options while wandering through the old town.
Apps and other miscellanea
Use a translate app to find places of interest and places to eat. I found some food spots on Happy Cow, but I mostly translated versions of the word 'vegetarian' into simplified Chinese and pasted that into AMAP and Baidu maps to find local spots. As I mentioned somewhere above in this post that's taken me days to compose, Happy Cow doesn't help you much in China. This is hugely because Happy Cow links to Google Maps (so it's very difficult to find places because Google don't work) and because it's an app mainly geared toward Western countries and thus listings are limited.
FWIW the only reason I haven't switched from using Pixel phones to another brand is because of the live translate feature (you can instantly translate/copy/paste/search anything on your screen, no matter the app), which saves you taking screenshots to then upload to a translate app.
This is a chat app with all sorts of other built in systems, including payment. Payment from this app is accepted nearly everywhere. Take note of your password because it can be tricky to recover. You'll probably need a friend to invite you via a QR code scan, so if you need help then you can drop me a note here or send me a DM on Instagram.
Once you have WeChat installed, search for 素食雷达. A few results will pop up. The top result, indicated with an arrow in the photo below, is for a vegan mini programme. It has a map feature with city names available in English, so you can sort by location. Consider it like a Chinese alternative to Happy Cow.
Other apps
Some of the apps will require you to upload your passport. It is what it is. You won't be able to use payment without it.
- a VPN that actually works: Many of the popular VPN services we have access to claim to work in China, but on arrival I realised that's not always the case. For instance, I have a subscription to ExpressVPN and when I complained to locals about it, they said that hadn't worked properly in China for a long time.
- Baidu maps
- AMAP: An alternative to Baidu maps. Remember, Google does not work in China (I've been told Apple Maps works semi okay, but I don't have an iPhone so can't confirm), so you need another app. I recommend both AMAP and Baidu. Also has Didi built in.
- Alipay: one of the popular payment apps, accepted virtually everywhere. Also has a built in translate feature as well as trip.com booking (great for booking hotels and tickets in China)
- Wise (or alternative): Helps you avoid costly conversion and ATM fees. I linked my Wise card up with Alipay and WeChat with no problems.
- Didi: the Grab/Uber of China. Very easy to use. The app is also built into AMAP. FYI when you catch a ride they'll ask for the last digits of your phone number before departing.
- eSIM (FWIW I had all sorts of signal issues with Airalo so don't recommend it) or Chinese SIM card.
Other thoughts and suggestions
This suggestion is going to sound paranoid, but bring a backup device with a sim if you're not traveling with a friend. If your phone breaks or you lose it, you're truly SOL because everything happens through your phone in China. It's no longer a cash based society, so you not only lose the ability to navigate maps and find locations but also the ability to pay. It's not that people will refuse cash, but that it's highly possible they won't have change.
My phone went kaput and had it not been for a friend who hooked me up with some local vegan, buddies, I'd have been in a very poor position. The things I wouldn't have been able to do on my own, without help from bilingual individuals willing to give me a day of their time, include: buying a hot meal, finding a used phone marketplace, meeting with a seller to discuss and complete the transaction, paying for the device, setting up apps and new accounts in a language I can't read or write, and more. They took me to a market and then onward to their home, where they provided lunch, and spent hours installing apps, troubleshooting, and setting up new accounts for me in Chinese.
Because Chinese apps are extremely secure, I also lost access to payment apps that would not allow me to add any cards I'd used on my previous accounts. Remember when I said to take note of your WeChat password? Do it, because if you don't then it's next to impossible to get back in on a new device. In the end they had to transfer their own money to a new WeChat account balance until I was able to figure hours and hours worth of things out. And, because it was a Chinese phone that also meant zero Google, Meta, etc... apps. And an app marketplace I couldn't navigate because, again, language.
The local friends said to me afterward that after seeing what I went through, they would start considering traveling with a second device of their on for solo domestic travel. Phones are that necessary. Allow me to summarise: YOU NEED A WORKING PHONE. And now, moving along...
The best souvenir is dried mushrooms. They're cheap and there's so much variety. I got a massive bag of dried morels for maybe £10 at Zhuanxin Market in Kunming, plus a bunch of different boletus family varieties and others I'd never heard of at various supermarkets in Dali.
Subscribe to Hannah Che's newsletter (and if you haven't already, buy her cookbook). She lives in the region and has made several posts about local vegan foods she's eaten. If you're at all interested in learning about Chinese food culture through a vegan lens, Hannah is a fount of knowledge and isn't a bullshitter. I emphasise the latter descriptor because I know you know how hard it can be to find real deal humans on this here internet, so let me save you some time.
If you want to learn more about specifically Yunnan food, you can also check out Georgia Friedman's Cooking South of the Clouds. It's not, however, a vegan cookbook.
Alsooooo did you know London has its very own Yunnan restaurant? What's more, there are loads of vegan options on the menu. You might not be able to make it to Yunnan, but you can try vegan cross bridge noodles, tofu noodles, baojiang tofu, and more without leaving the city!
Okay, this is finally over. If you got this far, go treat yourself to something nice.
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