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Buddha’s Delight and Buddha’s Delight Too!

Buddha’s Delight and Buddha’s Delight Too! are a pair of wonderful vegetarian Vietnamese restaurants in Boston’s Chinatown and in Brookline. The menu offers things like ‘Vermicelli with “BBQ Pork” and spring rolls’ (my personal favourite), but even when the items aren’t in italics with quotation marks, they don’t actually have meat in them. Some of the dishes are similar enough to meat dishes to make a confirmed carnivore like me happy, and some of them are quite removed from anything that walketh on two legs, or four, or flieth, or swimmeth, but most are very yummy. When Tigris and I go there, one or the other of us usually has the vermicelli with ‘pork’ and spring rolls I mentioned above, and she has a jackfruit shake and I have jackfruit on ice.

In Brookline

The Brookline restaurant is at 404 Harvard St., near (north, I think) Coolidge Corner, and the phone number is 739-8830. The service and atmosphere at the Brookline location are better than in Chinatown; the food is the same.

Map

(This map is courtesy of www.vicinity.com.)

Here’s a map showing Buddha’s Delight Too! in Brookline, and Harvard St. from Commonwealth Ave. through Beacon St.

In Chinatown

The Chinatown restaurant is at 3 Beach St. (They recently moved from next door — their new space is a lot nicer than their old one.) I think their phone number is still 617/4512395, but I’m not certain of that.

By public transit

(You may want to consult the MBTA’s map and fare information. Chinatown is on the Orange line.)

Take the Orange Line to the Chinatown stop. The Chinatown station’s exits are on Washington St. You’ll want to walk along Washington St. a block or so away from downtown. If, as is probably the case, you were travelling outbound, that means you’ll turn left when you get to the street.
Go a couple blocks (?) along Washington St. and turn left onto Beech St. Beech St. is one way coming towards you. Good thing you’re on foot. :-) You should already have seen Buddha’s Delight on your left from Washington Street.
Buddha’s delight is a couple doors down from the corner with Washington, on the right side of Beech Street.

By private transit

Warning: Boston’s Chinatown epitomises the New England saying, ‘Y’cahn’t get theah f’m heah.’ The streets are oneway (and may change direction unexpectedly) and very narrow, and parking is difficult. Your best bet is to find Chinatown (which in itself is pretty easy), wander around trying not to kill too many pedestrians until you find a parking lot, park, and get out and find Tyler St. on foot. From the downtown area, you can take Washington St. The Chinatown exit off I93 also works.

Maps

(These maps are courtesy of www.vicinity.com.)

Here’s a map of Chinatown at a scale suitable for walking. The Chinatown T stop on the Orange Line is at the corner of Washington and Boylston streets. Be warned: only major streets are shown here.
Here’s a map of the general area, showing I93 and I90 (the Mass. Pike).

The images below are the Buddha’s Delight menu (shared by the two stores), scanned in at 85dpi. Let me know if you have trouble reading them. They are significantly out of date! I believe the dishes (and corresponding numbers) are mostly correct, but the prices have increased. (Thanks to Shane for calling this to my attention.) I’ll try to get newer menus posted shortly.

Page 1 (cover)
Page 2 (beverages, rice)
Page 3 (soups, appetizers, specialties, vermicelli)
Page 4 (rice dishes, noodles, lo mein, chow fun, ‘poultry’, ‘pork’, ‘sea food’)
Page 5 (desserts, luncheon specials)
Page 6 (specialties, chow fun and stir-fried noodles)