''SOME of my best friends are vegetables.'' For years, vegetarians have put up with this sort of inanity; it comes along with questions about protein and iron deficiency and the death of carrots worldwide.
But the real problem facing the meatless many is where they can go to eat. In Hongkong, the choice is limited; spicy Indian, noisy Chinese or a tin of beans at home, again.
But after years of subsisting on limp lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber salads or reduced to picking the bits of meat out of the chow fan, Hongkong vegetarians are finally revolting.
And these are not militant card-carrying members of the cause or elderly hippies, this generation are shrewd business people who know an opportunity when it's sitting on a plate in front of them. They're lean, they're mean and they're far from green.
Or so we hope.
For years, it seemed the quickest way to commit financial suicide was to open a Western-style vegetarian restaurant in Hongkong. Indian and Chinese equivalents last but for those risking anything more than a token salad on a meat-orientated menu, it was the abattoir of business acumen.