Chow’s Kitchen: What’s Vegetarian Editorial Review

Chow’s Kitchen has real vegetarian dishes on its menu, but they’re outnumbered by a Shanghainese menu built around Peking duck, pork belly, and shrimp, and reviewers are direct that the vegetarian selection here is limited. It’s billed as Pittsburgh’s first dedicated Shanghai-style restaurant, opened by the owners of the well-regarded Everyday Noodles, in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood on Forbes Avenue.

What’s vegetarian and vegan at Chow’s Kitchen

Stir-fried and fried stinky tofu are among the dishes reviewers highlight most, a fermented tofu preparation that’s a genuine Shanghainese specialty rather than a substitution bolted onto a meat dish. Silky tofu served in a spicy Sichuan pepper sauce is another standout, and eggplant with garlic sauce shows up as a classic vegetable dish alongside heavier options like Stuffed Eggplant Pot Stickers and Chicken with Eggplant, which do contain meat. Chow’s Kitchen, alongside its sister restaurant Everyday Noodles, focuses on scratch-made regional Chinese cooking, and its Peking Duck gets called out repeatedly in reviews as the restaurant’s signature dish, a reminder of where the kitchen’s real focus lies. Other reviewer favorites, like pineapple shrimp balls, soft beef, and pork belly, only reinforce that this is a menu written for meat eaters first, with vegetarian dishes sitting in as a smaller supporting cast rather than a full section of their own.

How to order

Order the tofu and eggplant dishes by name, stir-fried tofu, stinky tofu, or the Sichuan-style silky tofu, and ask directly whether they’re prepared without meat stock or oyster sauce, both of which show up often in Shanghainese cooking as flavor bases even in dishes that look vegetarian on paper. If you’ve eaten at Everyday Noodles before, expect a similar from-scratch approach to sauces and broths at Chow’s Kitchen, since the two restaurants share ownership and a similar philosophy toward regional Chinese cooking rather than Americanized shortcuts.

What to watch out for

Stinky tofu and Sichuan-style tofu dishes can be cooked in the same woks used for meat dishes throughout a normal dinner service, so mention any dietary restrictions clearly when you order rather than assuming separate equipment. Sauces in this style of Chinese cooking often start with a meat-based stock even in dishes that read as vegetarian on the menu, so it’s worth asking rather than assuming. Reviewers are consistent on one point: the vegetarian selection here is genuinely limited, not just underrepresented in what’s easy to find online. The restaurant runs a full dinner service seven days a week, Monday through Thursday until 9:30pm and later on weekends, so there’s flexibility in when you go, even if there isn’t much flexibility in what’s on the vegetarian side of the menu.

Is Chow’s Kitchen worth it?

If you’re already going out for Shanghainese food with a group that eats meat, the tofu and eggplant dishes are worth ordering as real, well-executed sides or shares. As a standalone vegetarian destination, though, it’s not there, reviewers and the menu structure both point the same direction, so don’t plan a trip around it if you’re eating meat-free and want a lot of variety on the table.