• 4
• Good Place, Could Be Cleaner

This was the first veg restaurant I went to in Shenzhen having found the listing on happycow. I was very impressed with it at first because of its rather stark contrast with the Shenzhen one sees from the streets. It is calm and Buddhist. The food is good - they know how to cook. I always judge by how many tofu dishes are available, and although The Summer Tea House has an extensive menu, only two or three actual tofu dishes are on offer. The rest is basically fake meat of unending varieties. While this restaurant is certainly cleaner than your standard restaurant in China, there are piles of dirty dishes in the hallway entrance to the bathrooms, and I actually had a smallish cockroach walk accross my table the other day! But don't let that put you off this place, because it is certainly worth a visit. You'll find the usual assortment of aspiring middle-class Chinese and Buddhist monks with their family and friends. Very little or no English. So tofu is "do fu" accent on the "do," rice is "mi - fan" and ice water is "bing shu-ay"