Quan Yin

Super delicious. Get the vegan tofu meat, pieces of fried tofu in a brown vegan "meat" sauce. There are a few things on the menu I don't like, i.e. the rolling ham. So I usually stick to my favorites.

Not totally vegan but there is a lot of vegan options. definitely a good place to go if you crave animal products!

Excellent Service and atmosphere.
Excellent vegan Asian style cuisine.

Quan Yin is a go to goodie destination for Houston's vegan & vegetarian Communities, where you take people who think a meal isn't complete without meat. The menu has abundant tasty "mock meat" options to quiet that crowd, while filling them with cruelty free food.
Usually open for foodie holiday feasts, when veg options are either eat at home, or pay exorbitant prices for a hotel or restaurant buffet with only a salad & a few sides that don't include animals.
Prices moderate. Family style, where everyone orders something different & then samples, or individual servings. Quan Yin satisfies.

I was losing faith in finding vegan places where I could confidently invite my non vegan friends out to dinner, and this place is def one of 2 or 3 places that I've found so far.

This place is a bit out of the way for me but I am so glad that I made the drive out today! The service was very quick and the menu was huge! There were so many options to choose from - you could easily get something completely different for many, many visits.

Today we got the fried dumplings as an appetizer. They were great. My husband, who usually isn't a fan of dumplings, ate two of them!

From the entrees, our party ended up ordering the sweet and sour pork, fried rice, and the vegetable and vegan meat medley on fried noodles! Steamed rice came with one of the entrees, so there was more than enough rice to go around. Everything we got was extremely fresh and full of flavor. The portions were huge - we ended up having to take a bunch home!

The sweet and sour pork was the group favorite today. I also loved the mushrooms in the vegetable medley. Cannot wait to see what the other dishes taste like! You are definitely getting your money's worth here.

The food seemed average. The dishes selected did not seem very healthy.

We had dinner here and the food was good. We had one faux meat dish with rice. The sauce was very tasty. The other dish was a vermicelli dish did not impress us that much. The food was served quickly. The price is reasonable.

On Sunday, August 3, 2014, at approximately 1:15 p.m., I entered Quan Yin's Vegetarian Restaurant with two of my friends. After choosing a table that would accommodate the three of us, a waitress approached with a stack of menus and abruptly dropped all of them on the table. This puzzled me initially, as we only needed three menus. After sitting, talking some and deciding what each of us would order, we waited for the waitress to return. She didn't. After about 15 minutes a group of three Asian individuals entered the restaurant, were politely seated, and given menus. Their beverage order taken was promptly taken and the waitress retreated to the kitchen. We continued to sit in silence, but no server ever approached our table. After a time, we simply left. I have visited Quan Yin's Vegetarian Restaurant on several occasions, and I regret to state that this experience has been more the rule than the exception. Admittedly, the food is excellent and the prices very reasonable, but the service (for people of color) is deplorable. If you happen to be Caucasian or Asian you will find the experience rewarding. This is not an unfounded charge of racial discrimination- it is in fact an observation. Fortunately, there are several other vegan restaurants in Houston from which to choose.

I visited Quan Yin while on a business trip to Houston and really enjoyed it. The menu is huge, and filled with many items I used to enjoy before going vegetarian 9 years ago, such as cashew chicken, orange peel chicken, kung pao chicken/shrimp, etc. I had the vegan sweet and sour pork and hot and sour soup. It was so much food and all delicious. The soup especially impressed me because I used to really like that as a non veg. And I thought since it was under the appetizer menu it would be a small portion, but it could have been an appetizer for a whole family (I actually wish they had a smaller option because it can be hard to deal with leftovers while traveling). The sweet and sour pork was delicious, but note that as at many Americanized, standard Chinese restaurants, there were really not many veggies with my protein dish (some pineapples and slices of green pepper). Anyway, this is not a health food establishment, nor is it fancy, but I had an excellent meal very reminiscent of non vegetarian Chinese meals I used to eat.

Quan Yin is 100% vegan deliciousness! I have dined a lot at this restaurant over the years and was so happy they went 100% vegan a few years ago. The flavors are superb and very authentic. Their House Special Fried Rice is the best in Houston. You'll love the Vegan Pho, the Orange Peel 'chicken', the Veggie 'beef' Gai-lan, the authentic Vietnamese-style spring rolls, and the sizzling veggie 'fish'. It's great to know everything is vegan and you don't have to ask about ingredients. If you go on a weekend, there is such an eclectic mix of customers. The servers are very sweet, even when they are extremely busy. This restaurant has been around for over a decade and you can see why. Vegan thumbs up!

My husband I are vegans and this place is close to our offices. We go here once in a while for lunch, usually for some fake meat dish. I call this type of food 'comfort food', because it tastes really good. You can get a Peking duck and dumplings all vegan and you wouldn’t taste the difference. This is a place where some of my carnivore friends compromise going to.

Health wise I would be careful. You will not find brown rise or grains. The vegetables are usually not the base of the dishes, but added for flavor. If it is fried or deep fried it can be oily of course.

Again, I love that places like this are available. They helped me transitioning to being a vegan and are still my 'once-in-a-blue-moon-treat'. Nutritional wise this should probably not be your main food source.

(They are closed on Mondays.)

I don't go in for the faux meat but the Vietnamese dishes I have gotten were excellent and very reasonably priced. My wife does usually get the faux meat soups, and she likes them. Wait/cashier was quick to attend and refill waters. Kitchen was fairly quick (given their extensive menu). They are closed on Mondays.

Food is AMAZING. Their salted tofu dish is among the best tofu I've had anywhere! And their cajun soup is great! Personally, I stay away from anything that has vegan squid in it (I pick it out of the cajun soup), but other than that their food is amazing!

Updated from previous review on Tuesday March 05, 2013

Good food and nice prices. Staff is very accomodating to make substitutions for those who also have gluten issues.

My mother (who is not veg) actually recommended this place! She was looking for a new place for us to eat (because I am vegetarian), and came across this restaurant. We went (after much difficulty finding the place) and tried it out, and it was very very good. :) My mother even enjoyed it very much! She loved the veg beef. Salt-toasted tofu was amazing! I ordered some lo mein, and I loved it!

I will go back just for the Quan Yin soup

I had the pleasure of finally making it out to Quan Yin. This restaurant had been on my short list for like, two years!

We had six different dishes: spring rolls, fried mushrooms, sweet/sour soup, tofu curry, spicy eggplant, and stir fried bean sprout dish. They were all very good. I especially like faux meat - the vegan ham and beef were very good in the stir-fry. I think the highlight was the soup which was so fresh and full of flavor. Every dish was delicious. I definitely plan on going back.

Maybe I am wrong, but to me a vegan is not only a person who avoids eating all animal products, but also a person who wants to eat healthy. Since meat, dairy and oil are now known to be the very cause of cardiovascular disease (read EAT TO LIVE by Dr. JOel Fuhrman) being a vegan means we want and need to know who serves vegetarian, healthy food.

Well, this place is a complete joke if you want healthy food. Everything, and I mean everything on the menu is either deep fried or stir fried. Even the soups are loaded with oil by the managements own admission.

Are they themselves health conscious and educated on a healthy lifestyle? NO Way. They think that deep fried is great and oil is king. They acted like I was a nut for asking if there was at least one dish that did not have oil. This place does not even have brown rice.

And as for the fake meat dishes. Hydrolyzed Soy protein. And whey. If you call that healthy and even vegan, you and I are not on the same page as to what being vegan is all about.

If you like deep fried so much and if you like oil so much, heck, just go to McDonalds and get fries and a Big Mac.

Vegan is more than just not eating animal products, its about eating healthy and this place does not have the slightest idea what eating healthy means.

The menu was filled with mock meat recipes, which I'm not sure would appeal to a vegetarian. Was hoping for just a nice vegetable selection but only found a handful or so options. Overall ok but they have an opportunity to do better.

Oh my where do I start... My husband and I had been trying to get out to Quan Yin for a while after hearing so many good reviews about it and it is so close to Loving Hut and Pine Forest Garden which we frequent a lot, so finally we decided to have lunch there this Saturday afternoon and words can't describe our disappointment. Maybe we had our expectations set too high? We ordered the fried dumplings, chicken curry, and kung pao chicken. Dumplings were drowining in oil but after drying them off in our napkins they were good; First, no choice of brown or white rice... the chicken curry was breaded (??wha??)strips of soy chicken product with what seemed like frozen peas and cubed carrots as the veggies (so few we could count them)in a disappointing dreary sauce, the kung pao I asked for not spicy which it wasn't, which was nice, but asked for broccoli (which was $2 extra to add broc...?) but the vegan chicken seemed like it was just warmed in a microwave and un-or very under-cooked. I was just puzzled the entire time. I couldn't believe this was the place everyone was gushing over. I was wondering if we were in the right place. The service was beyond slow and we were one of three occupied tables. I ate about 4 bites of the kung pao and actually didn't even want to take the rest home which is insanely rare for me because I am a HUGE leftovers person who hates wasting food. [edit by staff]

Excellent, authentic Asian vegan food with a ginormous menu (including photos of every dish) and good portions at good prices. Try the Green Pepper Steak(topped with cilantro and peanuts), the Roasted Vegan Pork(if you're like me and dig crispy stuff), the Orange Peel Vegan Chicken, the egg rolls(told you I like crispy), the fried dumplings, and the Seaweed soup. Heck, try everything else while you're at it. Methinks it's one of the best restaurants in Texas, and although it is an absolute travesty that Quan Yin isn't next door to my house, it's totally worth the long drive from the inner city.

Just a nice and pleasant place with great food.

I enjoyed the restaurant and the meal. It was pretty busy the whole time I was there. I had Eggplant in spicy sauce (though not so spicy) and salted Tofu. I really like getting tofu and trying different versions of fried tofu to find things I can try at home. I probably won't get this again, only because I should stay away from the salt. I did like it, I was hoping for the inside to be softer, but alas it wasn't. Very good just the same. Spoke with a man on the way out, I told hom I found him via Happy Cow. He said they were 100% Vegan now. That they used to have dairy in some of their dishes but don't any longer. I saw the previous note about whey products, didn't know that, didn't ask, so you probably should check if that's a concern. I will be back, am anxious to try one of the dishes with the mock chicken.

It's all about the fake meat! There are so many great options, that I don't know where to start with the recommendations. I will say that my personal favorites are the chicken fried steak and the chicken with onions. They have new menus now that tell you exactly what is vegan and what isn't. And they have a vegan chicken that can be used as a substitute in all but one of the "chicken" dishes, you just have to ask for it. Eggless eggrolls and fried dumplings are great too! The service has never been what they're known for, but it's not bad enough to detract from your meal. Love, love, love this place!

I've been here a few times and have always enjoyed the food. The staff could be a little friendlier, but I'm being picky. I love their egg (eggless) rolls. So delicious.

It seems that most vegetarian restaurants are outside of the inner loop. Why is that? They'd make a fortune if they'd just move to the Montrose area. Okay..anyway I went to this restaurant once. A non-vegetarian friend of mine talked it up for about a year before I finally dragged my car (and myself) allll the way out there. When I got there my companion and I were the only ones inside the restaurant, but since I tend to eat at "odd" times it wasn't too shocking. As we choose a table I couldn't help feeling like we weren't very welcome there. Just a vibe I got. We kept getting stares from all the people who worked at/owned the place. And ordering felt like a rushed experience since the waitress walked away from the table as I was finishing up my order. The food was okay - once again not anything that wowed me and makes me want to make the jaunt over there again (but perhaps I will..it's hard to properly review after just one visit). I remember thinking it was a little pricey for the quality. I'm also not a huge fan of mock-meats. I didn't stop eating meat so that I could eat things called 'vegan duck'. Aaand the most interesting thing was the Asian Christmas Special they had playing on the t.v. (ummm..in the middle of summer). Very surreal.

I've only been here twice and I can say this: the food is good. HOWEVER, the portions are a bit small for my taste (I mean, I had some sweet and sour... fish I believe and I received a plate with FOUR fish "rolls" and some sauce on top - and the food too pricey. Other than that, everything's clean, good, and yummy. The service isn't bad either.

I was a little dissapointed with Quan Yin; the food was just okay and the service was slow.

-VeganTex

I've been to this restuarant dozens of time and everytime the food has been excellent. However, I was told recently that not all the dishes are vegan. Some mock meats have dairy products in them. On their webpage, the say their food has, "no animal products, no eggs and no meat." It does not specify that the dishes are dairy free. Make sure and about dairy before ordering.

Amazing restaurant. This is the best vegan chinese food place I've ever eaten anywhere. In particular, the lobster and onions, chicken and onions and chicken fried steak are fantastic. I have tried maybe 10-12 of the entrees and the only one I found disappointing was some sort of fish type dish. Everything else was just different degrees of wonderful. That said, the service is terrible by American standards. It's a whole lot closer to European service - friendly but slow. None of that matters to me in the slightest. Quite frankly, the staff there could punch me in the face everytime I visit and I'd still be back as often as possible. The only thing that prevents me from eating there more often than I do is that it is so far away from the downtown area where I live. Oh, and they play easy listening music there and that occasionally drives me nuts.