Wild Ginger Pan-Asian Vegan Café

Vegan dining feels more like a hip lifestyle choice than a restricted diet at this Manhattan eatery. Sparse decor and flickering candlelight lull diners into a blissful state, though the lengthy menu of mock-meat interpretations of Thai, Chinese and Japanese dishes helps too. Lightly battered salt-and-pepper king-oyster mushrooms approximate the shape and texture of a great fried calamari, while General Tso’s soy protein—chunks of breaded faux chicken, red chilies and broccoli—is spared the sweet treatment and doused with a spicy brown sauce, instead.