Bookworm Vegetarian Cafe, Lamma Island, HK

Back in 2001 in Townsville, I had a dream wherein I had to catch a train to Paris but was trapped inside a building called "Bookworm Cafe" and time was ticking by and I started to panic and hit against the walls and scream for help. Most odd!

Then, in 2003, on my first visit to Lamma Island, I saw this:

Instant goosebumps! And it wasn't just the name! Visually it was identical to the place in the dream only, in my dream, there was an ATM machine immediately alongside, whereas, in reality, the island's only ATM machine is waayyy down the other end of this road.

But to discover the place actually existed? I've never in my life had a prophetic dream but it was all so "Alison Du Bois" I thought "This has to mean something!" so I went in to check the place out:

Inside? Nope! Radically different from the dreamscape. But, nonetheless, I looked at every book on the shelves, read every poster and pamphlet, flicked through everything, talked to the owner/manager and waiters, getting background stories, eavesdropped on conversations around me, waited for someone to drop a keyword or say something that struck a chord, but still nope, nothing; the place had absolutely no significance for me that I could see.

But, personally meaningful or otherwise, it is still a great restaurant!

OK, OK, yes, it's all hippy-vegetarian-zealot food and everything's organic and homegrown or social-justice and fair-trading sourced, and the menu tosses around all those sorts of ovo-vegan and lacto-ovo words which totally mean nothing to me, and there's all this stuff around explaining how meat gives you cancer and other icky diseases, and dishes have too-wonderfully-cute names like Gaia Grains, and Shanti Shakes ...

Here's Shepherdess Pie and Goddess Quiche

... and the staff is all so zealot-y and committed to this stuff that it really shouldn't be wonderful ... but, alas for those cynics out there, including me, everything tastes sooo good.

Ooh, here's an example of their zealot-ness. The toilet out the back:

You see this and go all "What is this? What are they thinking? I'm not using this!" ... and then you see the sign on the wall:

... and you think "Am I an insensitive, superficial bourgeois git, or wot?" which I suspect is the intention.

And if you want proof about how 5-star yummy all the food is, the place is always so busy that, about a year back, it's even had to expand into space across the street:

However, every few months, whenever we need a break from rat-race Hong Kong, and even when we come over for the seafood restaurants down the way, we drop by this place, even if just for dandilion coffee and totally yummy Krishna Cheesecake, there's always the thought in the back of my mind "Is this the time something big and significant is going to happen?"

But nope. Never more than nothing! Wonder if it really means I should be getting more into this stuff! Mmmm, ovo-vegan-lacto-whatever? Perhaps not!

But let's take nothing away from the fact that these guys have taken an idea and a heartfelt, passionate philosophy and turned it into something which really, really works ... so Mega-Kudos to Bookworm Cafe and their frankly fabulous food!