Lien Hoa Chay

AWESOME vegetarian/​vegan place. Friendly staff! The food is always fresh, and includes dishes that are ready to serve– REAL cheap too. Vietnamese based, across the street from another vegetarian place. Great place to check out, I love to see vegetarian places like this in business. The egg rolls are delicious too by the way!

2^nd time going here, food totally has changed within a week. SOOO much mSG in the bun bo hue this time! We gulped down cup after cup after cups of water when we got home!

Great hole-​in-​the-​wall for vegetarians! CASH ONLY! (one of the reasons for 4-​stars, rather than 5) The other reason is that the soup (tomato?) had two big chunks of tomato that made it too overwhelming. Also, the water was sweet. Not bad, but just sweet. I prefer regular water. Other than that, the food was OUTSTANDING (lots of flavor) and the prices were even better. However, the portions could have been better. A little too much rice and not enough vegetarian meat for my liking, but the flavor of the food outweighed the lack of portion. I will definitely come again. Be careful not to bring too many people, as the restaurant is pretty small (only 4 tables that seat about 4 people each). Oh, yeah, let’s not forget about the sweet little old lady!

My 100^th review!!! Had to make sure that I wrote about a good restaurant to «celebrate» this moment.
So my phở-​loving friend and I Unilocaled phở places in the Rosemead/​El Monte area and I was immediately won over when I saw that this place had 4.5 stars. We drove past it not seeing it and ended up parking in some residential street not too far away. When we got inside, I realized this place is vegetarian! OOoops. I love vegetarian but my friend is a carnivore. I asked her if she wanted to leave and go to a place with meat and she said she was down to try it.
I got the #8 (Mi Quang) because it looked good in the picture. It is a very flavorful yellow noodle soup with shrimp, meat (fake, of course), and peanuts. I’d definitely order that again. My friend got the regular phở. She didn’t care much for the fake meat but according to her, the noodles and broth taste exactly like real meat phở. I was relieved that she liked it. We also got an order of egg rolls. They are super flaky and crispy and filled with yummy goodness– I want to say they put some sweet potato in there? Whatever it was, it was good.
As others have said, Lien Hoa Chay is tiny… but tiny places usually have the best food, right? We were the only customers in there on sunday afternoon so we got our food quickly. The grandma who works there is really cute and friendly. I will be paying her many more visits in the future.

Pretty good food. I had the charbroiled pork noodle with eggrolls. Portion is not too big but enough to fill me up. Average pricing in terms of costs relative to other vegetarian foods.

This place is super good. The curry, Spring rolls. and phở. all vegetarian style. For around $ 10. The lady doesn’t speak english great. But there is a picture menu. Across from the golden arches. Kind of hard to find, next door to bar, I always enjoy this place…

It’s discreet, out of your view, but those are the fine pearls in the sea of restaurants! This place was one of those hole in the wall finds!
I’ve had trouble finding a good vegetarian vietnamese restaurant. I love bun, but it’s never vegetarian. If anything I find vegetarian phở which is sub par. I’ll be back here to try the phở but the bun was so delicious! I don’t know what they put in the sauce but it was so tasty! And the egg rolls were crunchy and flavorful!
I think the owner was the one who helped my friend and I order. We had a bit of a language barrier but just point to things on the menu and she’ll understand. She was very friendly. :)
There’s parking on the street right in front of the restaurant. You shouldn’t have trouble with parking since there’s not really many busy businesses around her.

I was very excited to find out that my friend finally found a Vietnamese vegetarian place where she can indulge! I have never seen a purely vegetarian Vietnamese place until now.
The restaurant is small but don’t let the size fool you. I like to believe that usually the small/​hole in the wall type of restaurants are the ones people should be trying out when they go dine out. When my friend and I walked inside the restaurant, we were instantly greeted and offered some pennywort tea (perhaps because they had so much of it!). We kindly refused because we just wanted to get down to the nitty gritty — having some delicious chicken veggie bun with egg rolls!
When the hot plates of steaming noodles, crispy egg rolls, and tender veggie chicken slices alongside fresh cucumber slices and carrots topped with chopped cilantro came out, I was ecstatic to eat. The sauce that came along with the meal was splendid and complemented the meal very well. Wish I knew how to make it!
The bowl and food portion was a very good size for the price we paid for was a very good deal. The workers were very friendly as well. The restaurant was clean.
Good eats!

Fresh light tasty Vietnamese vegetarian goodness. So wonderful to have this place it is like combing all my favorite jams into one. Vietnam and Vegetarian!

This is a small hole-​in-​the-​wall Vietnamese vegetarian restaurant with amazing food. I’ve been to Veggie Life down the street and I have to say that I prefer the food here. There weren’t any customers when my boyfriend and I came here, but we didn’t let that deter us. We spoke Vietnamese to the nice ladies there, but if you don’t speak Vietnamese, the menu does have a description of the food in English as well as pictures, so I don’t think it would be a problem to just point to what you want.
I wanted to order bun cha gio thit nuong (rice noodles with egg rolls and grilled pork), but they ran out of the egg rolls and instead substituted it with bi (shredded pork and noodles). Still delicious! The pork looks incredibly realistic and tastes sooo good! I’ve uploaded pictures of my dish here on Unilocal so please check the photos. You’ll notice that the pork even looks like it’s got fat on it! My boyfriend ordered phở dac biet, which was also good and satisfying, but you could definitely tell it was a vegetarian dish, whereas mine would’ve fooled any meat eater!
If you’re in the area, definitely give this place a try.

Wonderful vegetarian Vietnamese food.
My mother took me here while we were frantically preparing for Chinese New Year. They offer small Vietnamese egg rolls and other vegetarian dishes to go.
Phở is great, but you’ve got to try the 1. Bun Bo Hue, which is a vegetarian spicy beef noodle soup. They substitute the beef with tofu, of course. But it’s nice and spicy with a tangy finish. The broth is excellent, and the portions were good.
My mom had Mi Quang it was listed under #8 as vegetarian yellow noodle soup. The broth tasted the similar, but the Mi Quang use a sweeter yellow noodles. They sprinkled crushed peanuts on top, which made it surprisingly good.
The restaurant itself is small (no more that 6 tables), but that’s kinda nice.
Parking was a little difficult, but there’s additional parking behind the restaurant.
You might have some difficulty communicating with the owner/​waitresses if you do not speak Vietnamese, but that’s why God gave you fingers to point with.
I will definitely come back for my healthy fix of Bun Hue.

I eat vegetarian and phở quite often. The food was suprisingly complex which can be a problem sometime with vegetarian and vegan places… Anyway, I had the number 13 which was either a bun spicey beef or spicey duck, depending on what menu you looked at. It’s always funny dealing with immitation meat products but whatever it was it was good. The broth was a little spicey and had a nice complexity to it, the vermicelli was excellent, really an exceptional meal for a vegetarian place. My second visit I had the phở. Well the phở isn’t all that good, pretty bland. It’s tough because they are vegetarian so they really need to knock it out of the park on the broth, so it’s still good, but I have definitely had better. The mung bean sprouts, basil, peppers, etc… could be fresher as well, but I really doubt this place ever has crowds out the door. In summary, it’s not bad, and not great.

Vegetarian menu– Vietnamese food
I saw that every single person gave this place 5 stars, I figured I must try it out.
I went during lunch on a Thursday. no other customer was inside this small restaurant. My first reaction once stepping inside was, it is kind of hot in here. I don’t think any air condition was on, but that’s understandable since it’s a small store so they were probably trying to conserve.
I had their spicy phở, spiciness is a medium, which means you shouldn’t get it unless you can handle most spicy foods. I also got their egg rolls. Both dishes didn’t fail expectations, it was pretty delicious. The imitation meat in the phở was just alright, texture didn’t taste too much like meat. I mostly give credit to the good soup base.
I was inside eating for 1 hour, only one other customer came and left. Not sure if this says much about this restaurant?
Overall, I enjoyed it and I am willing to go back again when I’m craving phở.
Oh yeah, South El Monte is kind of ghetto. parking is in the back or on the street nearby.

A very nice clean hole-​in-​the-​wall vegetarian vietnamese restaurant. It reminds me of the small places I went to when in Ann Arbor or West Lafayette for college.
I was just here today. The spicy vegetarian phở is EXCELLENT, I drank every last drop of it and consumed every noodle. The taste is better than any meat phở I’ve ever had, including Phở 54 in Westminster. It’s hot, but not so hot that you can’t eat it (from a non-​Asian perspective) and the saltiness and oiliness are just right.
To cool my mouth I ordered an iced milk coffee and that was alone of the best iced milk coffees I’ve had, although it was very sweet.
The prices at Lien Hoa Chay are much more reasonable than the «Veggie Life» place down the street and the service is better. I also like the food at Veggie Life, but Lien Hoa Chay is better because of the above reasons.
Do yourself a favor and try this place out. Save a cow! Go vegetarian!

This is my new favorite vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant. It’s amazing how they get similar flavors without using meat. I’ve tried others that were not even in the same class as the food here. An do chay FTW!

I come reviewing this place from the unique perspective of someone who is a very happy meat eater, who often eats vegetarian food. The recent this matters is that I’ve had the meat versions of many of the dishes made here, and well I’ll tell you, the versions at this place are better than anything any other Vietnamese restaurant vegetarian or other wise.
Take no. 18 for example: Charbroiled pork and egg roll vermicelli. This is one of my favorite Vietnamese dishes, and its done so beautifully here. The fake pork is nothing like real pork, but it taste so much better than almost every version I’ve ever had, that I can easily skip over this minor fact. It taste of lemongrass and goes so well with the every so slightly sweet spicy sauce that you put in to moisten the noodles. The over all dish is balanced wonderfully, with plenty of herbs, and crunchy egg rolls. Now the egg rolls are a very important part of this dish, and Lien Hoa Chay has the second best egg rolls I’ve ever had. Seriously. Only one place makes a better version of this dish. Not even Phở Kitchen can hope to ever compare to the wonderful bold, balanced flavors, and yumy textures offered up in this one single dish.
Come here, vegetarian or not, and enjoy one of the best meals you’ll ever have in LA.
One thing to note, is that the owner of the restaurant, a lovely older lady who could easily be your grandmother, does not speak the best english, but as another person mentioned, the menu is very easy to follow. Also, if she recommends something, TRY IT. She knows her stuff. We went and she gave us a sample of the beef rolls, and man those things are CRAZY good. Just eat be merry and be happy.

I normally don’t review places based on one visit, but this little place needs the visibility and I plan to post follow-​up reviews after more visits.
A lot of vegetarian and vegan Asian restaurants have popped up in the San Gabriel Valley — too many to even track at this point. However, many are closed between lunch and dinner. After a futile attempt to eat at Happy Family, my husband and I headed down Garvey Boulevard to find another veg-​friendly Asian place that was actually open at 4 p.m. We eventually came upon Lien Hoa Chay — and what a find it is!
I should note that I am half-​Vietnamese, and before I became vegan I ate at plenty of hole-​in-​the-​wall Vietnamese restaurants that were heavy on the meat and fish sauce. I honestly thought the days of having the ethnic comfort foods of my childhood were gone forever. But no! Lien Hoa Chay is the best of both worlds: meat-​free, authentic, and very tasty. The place appears to be entirely owned and run by a sweet older lady who could very easily be someone’s mom or grandma.
We started with an order of cha gio (fried spring rolls), which were served with the standard wrapping ingredients: lettuce leaves, pickled carrots and radish, and purple mint, and little bowls of rice vinegar dipping sauce. The rolls contained vegetarian ham and a vegetables, and the outer skin was crispy. There were about 3 rolls cut into three pieces, so it was a good portion.
For the main dish I had the Phở Dac Biet — the house phở — and my husband ordered the Bun Bo Hue. I’ve had a few veg versions of both of these dishes from other restaurants (Loving Hut, My Vegan, and OneWorld Veggie), but Lien Hoa Chay captures the original flavors best.
The Bun Bo Hue was a nice, fragrant balance of lemongrass and chili oil with bits of bean curd and soy products and round rice noodles. My phở had a lovely, anise-​flavored broth that had a rich brown flavor and color, along with rice noodles and slices of mushroom and mushroom-​flavored mock meat. Honestly, were it not for the absence of raw beef slices, I never would’ve guessed it was vegetarian.
Both soups were served with their own helpings of garnishes: bean sprouts, lemon slices (yes, it should be lime but I’ll let this one go), and other fresh and fragrant herbs. I was really happy to finally introduce my husband to the whole experience of having Vietnamese food, because most vegetarian Vietnamese dishes are served in vegetarian Thai restaurants. They do a decent job, but it’s just not as authentic.
In terms of value, the price is about the same as what you’d pay at a regular Vietnamese place. Our bill was $ 17 for two bowls of soup and the cha gio, and we were stuffed to the gills.
The restaurant is a in very small, narrow location right on Garvey, but there are plenty of tables for a quick dine-​in meal. There is also ready-​made food for carry-​out. During our visit she was serving a tofu-​pineapple curry and a few other stewed dishes.
I highly recommend checking this place out, whether you’re new to Vietnamese food, or pining for an authentic Vietnamese experience minus the heart disease and animal cruelty.

Vegetarians: go here. It is superb.
It’s more like a Vietnamese hole-​in-​the-​wall that’s vegetarian, rather than a vegetarian good-​for-​you restaurant with a Vietnamese lilt. It seems to be run by someone’s sweet ol’ grandma, who told us the operating hours are 9am to 6pm, although the sign in the window says 6:30. I’ll be plotting how to get there in time to have dinner before they close.
I had the combination soup with yellow noodles. When they came out, the noodles were a little underdone, but by the time the soup had cooled enough to get down deeply into, they were just about perfect. There were about six kinds of vegetarian meats/​seafoods in a sort of beef-​stewey broth and a few chunks of perfectly cooked carrots bobbing merrily on the surface. That’s rather a lot of carrot, I thought when I first looked at it, although five minutes later I wished I hadn’t eaten all the carrot so fast because there wasn’t quite enough left. I tipped the plate of bean sprouts, cabbage and mint into it, ate everything, then lifted the bowl and drank all the broth. Not too spicy, or salty, or anything. Lots of crushed peanuts, and in fact one kind of went down unexpectedly when i was in drinking-​not-​eating mode. «If I have to choke to death on something,» I sputtered, «it should at least be something as good as this.»
My dining companion had the Bun Thit Nuong Cha Gio (vermicelli noodles topped with charbroiled «pork» and egg rolls). The veggie meat seems to be kitchen-​made and was quite good, studded through with Vietnamese herbs. Moreover, I thought the egg rolls were just about the best vegetarian egg rolls I’ve had. They came out crunchy and stayed that way, and they seemed to have veg. ham and a couple other interesting things tucked inside. Our table had a little jar of a chili and lemongrass condiment that, on the egg rolls, made all mankind come together in peace and harmony for about thirty seconds.
We split the Bahn Xeo (yellow crêpe). I like these a little crispier, and we both thought it could have used a pinch of salt. But there was ham and other things embedded in the batter, and it came with a prodigious plate of mint and lettuce and was an impressive amount of food for five bucks. (Most other things on the menu hovered around the $ 4 – 6 range.)
I’m hesitant to give it five stars on only a single visit, but my complaints (and I thought long and hard about it) were so minor that I just don’t feel like they add up to more than a half star’s deduction, so I’m rounding up. The worst of it was that she charged us two bucks for four large glasses of water, but in all fairness I did hear her hacking cubes of ice off a block somewhere back in the kitchen, so maybe it’s worth it. Would I have called out this line on the bill had the food not been extraordinary? Yes, I would. But it was, and I gotta go back, so just shut up.
There’s a serving case of some other cooked veg-​meat things (fried fish strips, I think, and sausage?). We didn’t ask what those were, but next time I definitely will explore. The menus were easy to navigate and color photos of enough things that you could just point to. It was fast, cheap and friendly. I honestly don’t see how the place half a block away («Veggie Life Restaurant») can have stayed in business so long with slightly more expensive food half as good and service ranging from hostile to indifferent.
Lien Hoa Chay seems like it’s been there a while, but seriously. Don’t wait to go.