A great addition to the vegetarian dining scene, Elemen offers affordableand elegant vegetarian fare that straddles East and West. We recommendthe good-value five- or eight-course set menus, which let you sample avariety of dishes in one sitting.

Salads, naturally, are a strong suit here. Sound bets include the spinach salad with crisp Chinese spinach leaves tossed in a creamy sesame dressing; and the mushroom salad featuring three different types of mushrooms in a savoury sauce.

Follow up with wholesome, soul-satisfying double-boiled soups such as the maca or the burdock root soups. Alternatively, try the Western-style wild mushroom cream soup scented with truffle oil. The mains selection, meanwhile, runs the gamut from tempura tofu with avocado maki roll and Japanese curry noodles to black truffle porcini pasta and wild mushroom and white truffle pizza.

A house favourite is the brown rice and quinoa served in a sizzling hot stone bowl. Finely chopped mushrooms and capsicums impart their natural sweetness while the charred rice grains at the bottom of the bowl give a crisp, smoky contrast.

To end the meal, consider the sticky date pudding with gelato—warm pudding is glazed with homemade butterscotch, sprinkled with walnuts and topped with vanilla gelato. There are also Asian sweets such as snow chrysanthemum with grass jelly, a light and refreshing treat.