Com Chay Ha Thanh is a family-run vegan restaurant unlike the usual. Although it serves traditional meatless Buddhist food, it adds an unconventional, modern twist to its menu by allowing normally monastery food-banned ingredients like onions and garlic, yet still serving decent and in fact, interesting food. Com Chay Ha Thanh was founded in 2008 by a Buddhist vegetarian family.

The restaurant is actually an old house with a rundown appearance, but livened up with attractive flowers and other modern amenities. In honor of traditional monastery food, the eatery doesn't serve meat. Instead, it offers healthy yet delicious alternatives of Wheat Gluten and Orange-rimmed Geo Lua in place of pork. The former costs VND50,000, while the latter is priced at VND35,000.

Its version of breaded white meat famous among the young generation today is the Velvety Orbs of Taro with a Brittle Crust (Khoai mon chien sot), and Fried Chicken (Ga manh chien). The former costs about VND35,000, while the latter around VND45,000.Buddhist monks don't use garlic and onions in their cooking, believing that such ingredients “hurl the senses into an undesirable state of excitement.”

But Com Chay Ha Thanh breaks this tradition by adding the following, along with scallions, into their food. Moreover, most of the dishes are cooked in a deep fryer. The plating is elegant, surpirisingly a reflection of Buddhist principles. Spicy peppers are added into the chicken wings, carved carrots are placed as decorative food, and herbs provide both color and taste to the dishes.

But since Com Chay Ha Thanh departs from the standard tenets of Buddhist food, maybe that is why too some of their dishes are not very acceptable to one's tastes. Dao sot ca chua (tofu in tomato sauce), Ca thu sot (steamed fish), and Suon xao chua ngot (wheat gluten) are some of the restaurant's pride, but Dao chien xa ot (lemongrass tofu), fake meat, factory-produced meats (fake snails) are not highly recommended.

Since Buddhist food is basically meatless, maybe that is why the vegetables dishes at the restaurant are far more pleasing than its meat alternatives. The eggplant, mushroom, spinach, and rice dishes provide an almost heavenly satisfaction to its guests.But then again, it all depends on one's preferences. And perhaps because of the country's history and culture, eating vegetarian food in a Buddhist tradition is finding its way back into the contemporary world. Com Chay Ha Thanh may not be your authentic monastery food, but then again maybe it is this unconventional, modern departure from what is usual that makes it intriguing to everyone, making then try out and even go back to the place.