Long Life Vegi House
Categories: Chinese, Vegetarian [Edit]
Neighborhoods: Downtown, UC Campus Area2129 University Avenue
(between Shattuck Ave & Walnut St)
Berkeley, CA 94704 (510) 845-6072
- Price Range: $
- Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
- Parking: Street
- Attire: Casual
- Good for Groups: Yes
- Good for Kids: Yes
- Takes Reservations: No
- Delivers: No
- Take-out: Yes
- Waiter Service: Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: No
- Good for: Lunch, Dinner
- Alcohol: Beer & Wine Only
23 reviews
Neighborhood: Gourmet Ghetto
"Love this place! The setting is superbly unique...my friend (Japanese American) and I went up the stairs and sat at the top of the court,…" read more »
85 Reviews for Long Life Vegi House
I really do not like this place and the last two times I've gone has only been because a friend chose it as the location for a birthday party.
I enjoy Chinese food and especially good vegetarian Chinese food but this ain't it. Many of their dishes taste the same with a similar gloppy sauce - one just has broccoli while another has green beans.
Next party that is here - I'm calling in sick...
This place is cheap, so cheap, and so... veggie. I love me some meat substitutes, and they seem to have them all. Sometimes quality can be hit or miss, but that's probably just because I've been there so many times I've caught them on an occasional off-day. Service is fine, but forgettable. Seriously, I can't remember the faces of any of the people who work there. It's like, ghosts are delivering your meal or something.
woooo-oooo-ooooo...
Lady Pestlebottom introduced me to this eatery, and we eat here quite often. Although I must confess I can't give a more comprehensive review because I always order the same items, both of which are delicious. Broccoli vegi-chicken is delicious and healthful, and the orange vegi-chicken is more of a guilty pleasure - deep-fried dough with small strips of vegi-chicken inside (but not always), topped with a sticky orange sauce. Delightful.
It's also good to see that they make use of child labour - we have on more than one occasion seen a girl of about two years wiping all the dining chairs with a damp rag. She is very industrious, and will make a good waitress or cook in 2 or 3 years.
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This place has so many different dishes that I can't definitively say whether or not this place is "good". The two dishes I have tasted there have been okay. Not a lot of flavor, but filling none the less. They are also really, really cheap. My food came out to $12 and that lasted me through dinner and lunch the next day.
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Stick to the vegetables and seafood. The vegi-meat options here taste funny, so you might as well just get tofu.
I believe this is a family-owned place because I usually see two little kids playing near the back of the restaurant. The last time I was here they were giving each other piggy back rides. Teehee.
I've been regularly ordering broccoli with black mushrooms, sauteed string beans, and long life (sweet garlic sauce) eggplant. They cook the vegetables excellently, but there's a bit too much salt sometimes, but overall it's good. The vegetables taste fresh and crisp and you definitely feel healthier because it's a light meal. They have white or brown rice for you to choose.
Don't be afraid to order alot of food though. The portions are generous, but you just might not get filled up with just vegetables. Prices are reasonable from about $6-$8 per family-style dish and $5 for a lunch special that comes with soup and egg roll. Not bad if you're in the area and are in the mood for some vegetarian Chinese!
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I went to Long Life Vegi House brunch a few months ago with a big group of friends. Which they were very accommodating of. We were seated very quickly and only moments after our waters and tea were brought out to us.
There is a lot to chose from on the menu, so we all decided ordering family style would be the best option so we could all share . We put the one member of the group who had been there before in charge of ordering for us because he knew what the best dishes were.
My favorite dish was the eggplant. A friend of mine and I still talk about how damn good it was. Their fake meat dishes didn't thrill me too much, but thats probably because I eat real meat. All the vegetable dishes were awesome! I suggest ordering those over anything else.
The food came out to us very quickly and the wait staff was fairly attentive to our needs. The one thing that we had to request a couple of times were refills for a glasses of water.
All in all I had a good experience and plan on visiting them again.
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First off, the restaurant is not very clean. I received a glass with lipstick marks on it. I know this happens sometimes, fine. But when I asked for a new glass and gave the reason, they brought a new one while leaving the lipstick-stained one there for me to look at the entire lunch. The table and menus are also sticky, and the plates didn't look so clean, either.
I'm a little lax about cleanliness and service when there is good food, but alas, we were all disappointed there as well. The tofu was watery, not very warm, and not cut very evenly. The veggies needed spice or salt and way less oil. The best dish was with curry and mung noodles--it was well-spiced and salted and the eggs tasted fresh. If you order family-style, it might be difficult to find 5 good dishes that you can all share.
My first really faux-meat-centric dining experience, so it must be worth something. Some items on the menu have overly syrupy sauces, but standards like fried rice and general tso's are usually satisfying.
I highly recommend the vegi-ham, but I would like to caution you against trying the duck! It is oddly reminiscent of an actual roasted duck, albeit in a weird tofu-mold sort of way. There is faux shadowing and an odd texture that is supposed to emulate crispy duck skin, I think. Even if that description sounds intriguing, its oddly sweet smoked flavor is all wrong and you will be better off with any other faux meat.
If I lived closer I would get take-out from here sometimes, I swear. Other than that it is not the best Oakland has to offer, but it's good for the general area.
Pretty cheap, pretty bad.
I miss all the vegetarian options in LA... If you'd told me then that vegetarian food in LA tastes better than in Berkeley I'd have laughed. Now I cry. (Or more accurately, now I don't eat vegetarian much any more.)
The lunch specials are a great deal. Most recently, I got asparagus "veggie chicken" with spicy garlic sauce over brown rice. It was a ton of food (came w/ soup and spring roll), quite tasty, and cost less than $5. Other entrees I've had in the past have always been solid. It's no frills, good, cheap, vegetarian or pescovegetarian chinese food. No complaints.
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I cannot believe this place has 4 stars!
It's oily and the service is just bad.
I've been here quite a few times throughout my 8 years in the Bay area. I would never suggest coming here on my own (if I was to compare, Great Wall is def. better on College) but I would go if a friend wanted to go (even though I can't think of one that would).
I will drive all the way down to Downtown Oakland and go to Golden Lotus and have a real veggie meal (and people who are aware of what wheat-gluten is!) before I go here.
I really don't think anything is cleaned right, and It makes me feel like I've entered the twilight zone in the 80's or something...with all the options in Berkeley, this is not one of them.
You CAN try and ask them for "light oil" though...and I doubt they use different woks for the fish.
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Faux-meat. The people back home won't believe it, but by God, it isn't as bad as it sounds. Yes, I *can* eat that crap, and I'll even pay for it.
I went with two friends who frequent this place. I asked what their szechwan beef tastes like and was told, simply, "chicken." I decided to cut my losses and order the szechwan chicken. I'm proud of my choice. Delicious hot and sour soup, nice egg roll, and just all-around goodness.
I wish I could describe this place better, but I'm out of adjectives. Grab your thesaurus and do it for yourself.
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My experience with Long Life Veggie House was like a date gone bad. At first I was encouraged and hopeful because they offer, not only fake chicken, but also seafood which was perfect for me and my fishy loving pal. But I later realized, it takes a lot more than slapping down a piece of fake meat in front of me to have me on my knees begging for more.
While options abound, I was frustrated by the menu that did not explain what any of the dishes were. I was even more frustrated by our server with her weak descriptions when I inquired.
I agree with the other reviews on this site-no atmosphere, not even that dingy, I'm gonna impress her with my little hole in the wall restaurant charm. But the generous portions were cheap and the food was served quickly.
Was it too much that I was hoping for a spark? Some chemistry? I felt like Long Life Veggie House rolled over and went to sleep on me when done, leaving this vegan thoroughly unsatisfied. I guess I should consider myself lucky, at least I wasn't left with a pearl necklace.
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By my estimation, I have consumed approximately 748 Long Life Vegi lunch specials in my time. That's 748 cups of hot and sour soup, 671 egg rolls (sometimes I'd get too full to venture into roll territory), 254 servings of broccoli vegi-beef, 392 servings of vegi-pork with garlic sauce, 79 servings of kung pao vegi-chicken, 23 servings of sweet and sour vegi-pork, and 725,914 grains of delectable brown rice. Over the years I have come to think of Long Life as my second living room, if my living room had, you know, waiters and handwritten signs extolling the virtues of Long Life WHOLE FLOUNDER (with a hand-drawn picture of a whole fish with maybe exes for eyes? Maybe?) and an electrified picture of a waterfall that undulates like a beautiful naked lady and table seating for 94 or whatever.
The food is pretty dependable--as far as vegi-meat goes, there are all kinds of options. My very favorite is the Long Life vegi-pork with garlic sauce, even if it is basically vegi-meat donuts and tends to give what we have coined over the years as "the Long Life feeling" (is it the MSG? All those fried pillows of love turning to vegi-cement in your belly? The fact that you eat it too fast because it's so effing good?) If you can't get with the vegi-program, there is also a pretty extensive seafood selection. And the wait staff does you right. And they don't mind if you sit and read the paper for an hour because you're 21 and don't have a job and you're boyfriend's at work and you're bad at calling friends to make lunch dates.
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barf.
go to vegi food instead.
Although the portions are of decent size, the food quality is pretty much average. The atmosphere is a bit run downn and the service is mudane. I will most likely not return here on my own accord but if invited would go back. Inexpensive is a plus.
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There are a few things in this world that should or will almost always be the same: the Cal Bears with a disappointing season, Bostoners with an obnoxious chip on their shoulder, movie theaters on Christmas filled with people named Mordichi, Saul, Shiri, and Aviva But there are some things that are more sacred than others. I am speaking, of course, with the need to feel obnoxiously and uncomfortably full after a eating Chinese food.
At this, Long Life Vegi House fell short at almost every step. I was unable to eat quickly and found myself getting full faster than ever before. First, the pot stickers they brought out took forever (despite the fact that we were one of 3 tables with people at them), were burnt (as they were clearly heated up in a pan), and were so goddamn hot that my mouth felt like Moses at a charcoal grill (See Bible). I stuffed them down, but not as fast as usual. A warning would have also been nice, or were you too much in a hurry to get back to your television show?
Second, they brought each dish out one at a time, waiting until we were done with the previous dish before giving the next dish.
Seriously!
I mean, what kind of crap is this? I want my dishes commingling on the plate like desperate bachelors at a wedding. I want to see everything laid out in front of me and think, "Oh god we ordered waaay too much." I want the opportunity to eat almost all of each dish and then say "We might as well finish it all off because there is no point in taking it home." I want my goddamn uncomfortably full Chinese food experience and you robbed me of it Long Life Vegi House (if that is your real name).
What if me and my friend were not of the sharing type and ordered our dishes each for ourselves? Would one have to watch the other eat while waiting for the second dish to come out? Was the crappy TV show you were watching in the corner worth my ranting ire?
Anyway, the food was mediocre. The veggie chicken was thin and flavourless (so much so I decided to use the British spelling), but the eggplant was alright. I think there are better places out there, this isn't worth the anguish.
I say go to Oakland and get some Dim Sum. Mmmmmmmm...
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Holy crap this place is crapulously crappy. I'm not against faux-meat and all, as I've tried some awesome faux-meat in Taiwan, but their lemon chicken was appalling: greasy, mealy, nasty.
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Went here with a co-worker during lunch the other day. I got the mongolian beef plate b/c of yelp recommendation. I really enjoyed the main lunch plate and the price for the whole deal was amazing. I did not like the soup that much... it was bit thick and unfortunately there was a small insect in it. Overall, a good budget lunch.
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I've tried the various veggie/fake-meat lunch specials here, and I've yet to find anything that stands out. The gluten vegi-meats have ranged from disgusting to edible, and they seem to vary with every visit. (I usually get the non-fake-meat dishes these days.)
The only two reasons I continue to eat at this place are (1) the price (lunch combo + tip = $6) and (2) to keep myself from getting bored/sick of the other Chinese options around the area. I should also mention that the service here is pretty decent, as they tend to keep your glass of water full throughout your stay.
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Serviceable, but far from my favorite. I got the string bean and vegi-chicken, and quickly realized that if I want meat, I should just bite the bullet and get it. The starter soup was okay, nothing to rave about, and the brown rice just didn't cut it when paired with the main dish. Service was decent, but I wouldn't say friendly. Still, I walked out for like $6, so not bad for a budget-friendly lunch if you're willing to compromise on quality.
I love this place like an old friend.
This was the first place I ever ate at when I first came to the Bay Area many, many moons ago. I was a starry-eyed hippy kid and I remember being excited that there was a place where all the meat on the menu was vegetarian (save the seafood) and where the majority of the rice ordered was of the brown variety.
The food is not quite as good as Golden Lotus in Oakland, but it is still pretty tasty. I like the Chinese staples--hot and sour soup, wonton soup, spring rolls. Skip the chow mein. The fake meats are yummy, especially the chicken.
This place scores big points with me for being an institution, for living up to an idealistic kid's expectations of what Berkeley should be all about. But if you're not quite so sentimental , go anyway--the food's good.
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Ok, so vegetarians can't eat at restaurants where every dish includes meat, but why is it that meat-eaters think that they cannot eat at a vegetarian restaurants??
I am a meat-eater but when it comes to Chinese food I tend to prefer the vegetarian variety; I like my tender saucy fried delights to come without the greasy piece of mystery meat inside. That said Long Life is one of my all-time favorite Chinese restaurants!
Everything I tried was great, particularly the sweet-and-sour vegi-chicken and the Long-Life vegi-pork. The 'Long Life' sauce is sweet, spicy and a little garlicky, I believe it's their version of the 'General's' sauce (maybe Long Life are pacifists?).
The icing on the cake is that the prices are very reasonable. They have a lunch special 7 days a week until 5pm. You read that correctly. 4.55 for rice, any dish, a spring roll and soup . . . I have a sudden urge to cross the bridge . . .
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This is my new favorite place in Berkeley! It's cheap and good!!!! We had the eggplant in spicy garlic sauce, the kung pao veggie ham, and the hot and sour soup. The vegetables weren't cooked to a pulp, the veggie (read: fake) meat was decent and the portions were HUGE for the price. The service is nothing special and the owner's screaming kids were riding their tricycle around the restaurant (seriously!), but with all the upside, I didn't mind too much.
One of the best Vegi Chinese restaurant on this side of the bridge. Green beans with duck was especially tasty. If you're hungry and order standard sizes, you're going to be taking a lot home in doggy bags. The portions are on the large side. Service was fast and efficient.
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fuckdamn. the lunch special, which is soup of the day (yummy hot and sour today), fantastic spring roll and a huge pile of brown rice topped with whatever entree you choose, is only $4.55. its delicious. lots of msg, but delicious. i got kung pow "chicken", which was good, but i'm definitely venturing into meatless spare rib territory next time.
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My boyfriend and I used to live in Washington, DC, and we frequented a Chinese joint that sold Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) as a chicken replacement. TVP must be laced with crack because we both had TVP withdrawal after we moved away. That was nearly two years ago and finally -- FINALLY -- we may have found a TVP replacement in the "chicken" at Long Life Vegi house.
My suggestion: order one of the combos on the back of the menu. You can replace the entree on the combo menu with any other entree for $1 more. You HAVE TO get the orange chicken; it is fantastic! The combo comes with tea, hot & sour soup, a spring roll, moo shoo veggies, your entree, a couple of orange wedges and a fortune cookie. All told you will spend around $8 per person for this raucous feast.
My only complaint, and it is a big one: the cleanliness of this place leaves something to be desired. I have been to Long Life on three occasions, and each time I have either been served food on dirty dishes, I have had an insect in my water glass, or there has been a hair or two where there should be none. Not cool.
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best vegetarian chinese restaurant in the area. cheap. fast. they use a lot of gluten based "meats".
fyi: they only serve vegetarian food and seafood. the crispy noodles with seafood is mmm, mmm, mmm, good.
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My wife & I were regulars at the old Lotus Garden in SF, but we rarely ordered any of the "fake meat" dishes there. The ones we tried were not very good, and I think that's where I developed my dislike for phony meat products. However, after dining recently at several of the vegetarian restaurants in the East Bay, I've been forced to alter my opinion. Long Life has some of the best fake meat and seafood dishes I've ever had. I ordered five different items and was impressed with all of them. This restaurant is as old school as you can get. If you were a filmmaker doing a story set in the 70's,.or even the 60's, you could set a scene in the dining room here without changing a thing. The service is OK, just don't expect to have any sort of conversation with your server (not in English anyway). Try it you'll like it.
I have been coming here for 15 years and it is consistently good vegetarian chinese food. I haven't had actual meat for so long, I've forgotten what it really tastes like, but this place has good what-I -think-tastes-meaty fake meat. It was funny: Last time I went there, sort-of off peak meal-time, between lunch and dinnertime, I could have sworn that I spied the staff eating a big hunk of pork or something in the back, voraciously I might add.
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The lunch special at this place is a great deal! If you go before 3 p.m. you get: Soup, 1 spring roll w/ sauce, and a choice from about 25 entrees (which are big!) and brown rice. This is all for $4.75!!! If you go after 3 p.m. you get everything but the spring roll. I highly recommend the Kung Pao Vegi-Chicken and The Vegi Broccoli-Beef.
NOTE: Don't mistake the seafood for being mock-meat! Its real! Ahhhh!!!!
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This is some of the most amazing veggie Chinese food in the world! Unlike other places that just have a "tofu" section on their menu, Long Life takes pretty much everything on their menu and converts into a vegetarian delight using seitan and other great fake meats. They are also one of the few places that I've found that makes vegetarian pot stickers! They have some weird veggie stuff in them that tastes like pumpkin guts but I'm totally okay with that because I missed eating pot stickers soo much.
Aside from that, the fake lemon chicken is pretty fantastic, as well as the fake sweet and sour pork and fake beef and broccoli.
Another thing I really appreciate about this restaurant is the family-feel to it -- whenever I've eaten here there's always been a table in the back where the waitstaff and a couple of their kids chill out while people eat and I absolutely love that.
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Oh my gosh, food like my mom makes. I love it, the waitresses are all really sweet. The food is affordable. Two people can eat for less than $20. I recommend the sweet and sour vegi-pork. My favorite. And the vegetable steamed dumplings are also perfect.
oh, man. less than 5 bux for a lunch special that feeds two is a great deal any day. the specials come with brown rice, egg roll, soup, and it's huge. i came here two days in a row in a week when we were at the kaplan center down the street.
such a good deal, you forget that the service is sub par. try the garlic green beans and the eggplant. yum.
This place was complete emotional pandemonium for me. It was as if i was staring into a ubiquitous mirror, future tense setting in a low security asylum. Comfy, aged, drab, neutered, decrepit, forward cognition known as a torture device. Digestibles elicited the same response as water, it kept activity fluctuating but i could have done without the breading. I didn't feel pestered, no sinister lurking force in the parameter of unprotected inhabitation. Remove me, leave me in place, I am merely the yarn of the universe. (he he, it almost looks like yam. either one is hammy!)
Outside of this comical martyrdom, 4 portions for the price of one. Brown Rice cut off peripheral scrutiny most moments. Sacre bleu!
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I ate here today for 4.75 bucks. + 2 dollar tip.
Great Vegi Mongolian beef plate with brown rice, spring roll, tea and fortune cookie.
The food was great, really good fake meat. I think it could fool many meat eaters if they were not hip to the fact that it was fake prior to eating it.
Great service. My water was full the whole time.
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So good and such huge portions. I love having a meal for the next time when you leave a restaurant. I used to go here all the time for the lunch special which is insanely larger than dinner it seems. I'm really glad that they changed owners a year or so ago and the service actually was good, I had water and tea the whole time and didn't feel like my food was slammed down once and then a check slammed down 5 minutes later. I mean, maybe that efficient, but sheesh. Even when the service was like that, I still went there. That is saying a lot. The new waiter that told me that they had changed owners told me they kept the same chef. I feel like that was a big fat lie. But I don't care, it is still delicious.
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I really love the food at Long Life, but each time I leave I come home to a terrible upset stomach. Apparently I am an idiot because this doesn't stop me from going back.
You get a ton of food for like $8 a plate. If this place didn't make my husband and I sick each time we ate there I'm sure we'd go there more often.
Vegetarian Heaven. Order the "chicken" with black bean sauce and green beans. All of the dishes have flavor and the tofu/tempe or whatever this vegi meat substitute is actually hits the spot. No, it doesn't taste like meat but the consistency and flavor is perfect. No, I am not a vegetarian - so trust me.
I've been going here since 1995 and they have never had an off night. You will never have to wait for a table and you won't have a msg headache afterwards. Dinner for two under $25, what more can a girl ask for?
Try the lunch specials - they're crazy big. You will be stuffed.
There is one con - you may have gas afterwards.
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the lunch special is cheap and contains a lot of food. i don't think i can say too much more than that. they definitely have a large selection of vegetarian meats and dishes which is nice...but i don't think any of it is going to be very "good" per se. i would probably go back for the price, but nothing about the food is all that great or special.
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