After visiting my family in New Jersey on Father’s Day weekend, my wife and I stopped off at Singapore Vegetarian Restaurant in Cherry Hill, NJ (they also have a Philadelphia location). I ate there about nine months earlier and was dying to order some more of their faux shrimp. After my second visit, I can say that Singapore is a simply amazing restaurant and my wife, who isn’t vegetarian, agrees.

Singapore serves up a kosher vegan menu that can only be described as “extensive.” Do this: imagine a full service Chinese restaurant that has a couple hundred options on their menu… beef, pork, chicken, seafood. Now take that menu and you know what they serve at Singapore. Over 150 vegetarian options are offered including Kung Pao Chicken, Lychee Crispy Duck, Pork Ribs, Sizzling Seafood Delight, Beef with Satay Sauce, and Roast Pork with Black Bean Sauce.

During my first visit, I had pineapple chicken and split a plate of shrimp with a friend. The chicken was very good, but the shrimp were unbelievable. The “meat” slightly resembled shrimp, looking a little more like crab meat, and though the taste was close to shrimp it wasn’t exactly the same. But you know what: it tasted a hell of a lot better than I remember shrimp tasting. Apparently, the fake shrimp are made from a combination of tofu, seitan, honiaku (?), potato, carrot, and yam, and despite how weird that sounds, you’d be totally blown away by these delights.

This time around, I ordered the Golden Lion’s Head lunch special with miso soup. I didn’t quite know what to expect from the Golden Lion’s Head, but it sounded so good: golden mushrooms, tofu, five spice bean curd and tofu skin, and a Peking ginger sauce. Man oh man… good stuff. The sauce wasn’t too thick, like some Chinese sauces tend to be…. a wonderful texture and complex blend of flavors. My wife had the Seafood Combination lunch special (which included the shrimp!) and shark fin soup. We ended up ordering another plate of shrimp to go and it was a good addition to our lunches over the next few days.

If you’re travelling route 295 in New Jersey, I encourage you to take exit 32 and stop by Singapore for an excellent meal. They don’t have a web site (this one doesn’t really count), so here’s some information from their menu:

Singapore Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant, located in The Centrum Shoppes, 219-H Berlin Rd, Cherry Hill, NJ 08034 (856-795-0188). They’re open every day except Tuesday. Their Philadelphia location is at 1006 Race Street (215-922-3288).

And here are some scans of the menu: