East: 120 Vegan and Vegetarian Recipes from Bangalore to Beijing [American Measurements]

This is my favorite cookbook for simple, flavorful meals. And, by the way, the recipes are vegetarian. Beautiful pictures. Lay-flat binding (which means when you open the book to a page it friggin stays open! As it should be for all cookbooks but all to often, is not!). All the recipes are one page or less so - simple! I have not made everything in it yet but I am well on my way. Pho that is as good as any good take-out! Braised tofu that is a delight! PhadThai to die for! I live in a rural community that, while far from being a food desert, does present challenges when gathering ingredients. Enter Amazon! I’ve been able to find most things on Amazon. However, the vast majority of recipes can be made with what’s available on an island in the great Pacific Northwest.

I cook for a large crowd of old and young mostly vegans. I have made almost everything in this marvelous cookbook Without fail, the recipes are delicious, beautiful and easy to make. So many recipes including the Bombay Rolls, Summer Pilau, Napa Cabbage Okonomiyaki and Food Court Singapore Noodles have become staples I return to again and again. I have at least a hundred vegan cookbooks and I would trade them all in for this one. I fell in love with Meera Sodha with her India and Fresh India cookbooks but with this one she has created a masterpiece. I have given many copies away to friends and family. My copy is already looking so well loved, I may need to buy myself another copy. Thank you Meera for bringing us flavorful, bright, fun and delicious food for the whole family.

Amazing cookbook. Some of the recipes can be quite involved, so make sure to read before beginning to know what you will be doing. That said, every recipe that we have cooked from this cookbook has turned out delicious!

As a previous reviewer mentioned, this is the UK version of the book. But I didn’t have the patience to wait for the US version to come out because of how much I love Meera Sodha’s style of food and cookbook writing! She has an easy, honest style that shines through in the headnotes, and she somehow makes exactly the food my family and I want to eat. The recipes are enticing and colorfully presented, with clear step by step directions. I’ve already made a few recipes - the chili tofu, kale paneer tomato saag, and the chard new potato curry - all to rave reviews. The soba noodles with peas, mint and pistachio is on tonight’s menu.

Excellent book! I love to cook and generally spend a lot of time figuring dishes that will work for me - best things about this book: 1. I have made 6 different recipes - all have appropriate levels of technique and spice 2. I was able to make recipes under 1hr (start to finish) - note about myself - I have cooked for awhile but I believe even if you haven’t you will be able to use this book 3. Excellent mix of flavors for vegetarian/vegan folks Overall - excellent. One note, ingredients do need to be found .. so that might be the only complicated part but I live in the Bay Area so it isn’t an issue.

Great cookbook, when you take the recipes in isolation. My biggest compliant is the lack of a descriptive section to discuss unfamiliar ingredients. I have had paneer at restaurants - and I know I love it. But I don’t BUY it or COOK with it. Where do I get it? What do I look for? How do I store it? This is just one example, but it’s a disappointment. She’s so good at explaining her recipes, but I buy cookbooks from professional cooks (rather than on-line whatever) because of the knowledge and know-how they bring to the table. (Pun intended). Great recipes, though.

I love this cookbook! It has many delicious vegan options, which are easily denoted by the V for Vegan and VO for Vegan Optional. I've recommended this cookbook many times and have bought it for friends, who also love it. Some personal favorites are the Dan Dan Noodles, Kimchi Pancakes, and the Caramelized Fennel and Carrot Salad. I turn to this cookbook any time I am making dinner for friends and they always rave about the food. Thank you to Meera Sodha for creating this gem!

So far all of the recipes we’ve tried are great. We have not tried the Indian recipes yet, and I would estimate that this book has more Indian recipes than any other “East” country. Many are fairly simple but come together as bigger than the sum of their parts. Highly recommended!

Beautiful book. Delicious recipes.

Always a good place to draw inspiration from!

A perfect present. A Book to be proudly kept on the bookshelf. A Book to be preserved for generations!

Everything about this cookery book is brilliant! The photos are stunning and inspiring. Well thought out content, explanations of types of ingredients and added bonus of names of suppliers online. Love it! I would like to add, I’m not a vegetarian or vegan.

Very attractive visual presentation. My only gripe about the cover is that in my hands i know it will get stained and dirty through usage (I'm from the bombsite school of cookery) and it's not really wipe clean. I guess I could get a cover....but I won't. I'm working through the book and have only made three recipes thus far. But the flavours were excellent. I found the text of the recipes clear and appropriately detailed. There are several shops reasonably local to me where I can access some of the less usual ingredients. Although I found quite a few at my supermarket albeit substantially more expensive (hence exploration of my local Korean shop- what a joy & revelation!) I've been vegetarian for decades but branching out more into veganism these days so I don't really want to be eating paneer, but found that I could satisfactorily use firm tofu instead. Fact is that no cook book is ever going to be meet the individual needs of us all, so it's more about using a book as a creative starting point and adjusting things to fit your own tastes. I don't do frying apart from a bit of stir-frying using very little oil. There is quite a bit of frying in this book, so where possible I've used less oil and oven-baked as an alternative cooking method. It probably changes the end character of the dish a bit but it has still tasted good and been (I believe!) that much healthier. I also don't eat much in the way of carbohydrate and there are quite a few rice dishes in the book. I'll get around to them but it'll take a while. I'm sure they will taste good though. Full marks to Meera for not including useless breakfast meals, not too much in the way of dessert stuff and for avoiding overly effusive language. This is a down-to-earth book, just good food , and I like it ☺