Vegetarian fare served with a Buddhist flare

“Some Hanoians eat vegetarian food because they are getting fatter and want to keep fit, some have religious reasons, and others are just curious,’’ Nga said on a recent evening at Khai Tuong, a vegetarian restaurant that opened last year on a side road near Kim Ma Street, a motorbike-thronged boulevard.

“First my friends started following me to vegetarian restaurants,’’ she recalled between bites of a spring roll. “Now they go by themselves.’’

Hanoi’s vegetarian restaurants are known for serving wheat gluten-infused interpretations of traditional Vietnamese dishes. Too many overemphasize this so-called “fake meat,’’ in this Westerner’s opinion, but some serve delicious, macrobiotic-style vegetable dishes that would probably pass muster at vegan cafes in Brooklyn or Berkeley. Fake meat aside, these restaurants allow traveling vegans and vegetarians to sample northern Vietnamese food without fear of accidentally ingesting meat.

A big part of the experience of a Hanoi vegetarian restaurant, or com chay, is arriving on a motorbike and soaking up the Buddhist-influenced atmosphere. They tend to serve similar fare — veggie stir fries and spring rolls — but each offers a unique vibe.

Nang Tam is the city’s best-known vegetarian restaurant. Its Western-style dining room has wine racks, linen tablecloths, and a fireplace. Nang Tam takes its name from a Cinderella-like Vietnamese legend in which the Buddha gives a poor orphan slippers so she can attend a harvest festival and marry a king. When jealous relatives kill the orphan — twice — she reincarnates as an oriole and a peach tree.