While vegan food isn't an entirely new concept in this day and age, a lot of us are still not entirely sold on the idea. After all, where's the joy in eating if we can't savour the full-bodied flavour of, say, marbled wagyu beef or perfectly marinated pork?

If you still want to give the vegan diet a try, there's a new online 'restaurant' called Vegamama serving interesting vegan dim sum. Other than dim sum, it also offers a range of meatless dishes like Satay, Nuggets and Sausage Rolls, with real meat being swapped for a soy protein substitute.

But for those who are sceptical about whether meat-free dim sum is nice, we try out the menu and give our verdict below:

It's hard to imagine siew mai without meat, since the little dumpling is usually 90 per cent pork. This vegan siew mai is stuffed with soy protein 'pork' that is savoury with a slightly peppery kick. Texture-wise it’s pretty similar to the real deal, just a bit softer. But we find it quite dry, though the silky siew mai skin is decent.

This char siew bao is delightfully soft and fluffy on the outside, with a slightly-too-sweet mock pork filling flavoured with vegetarian sauces. Not bad.

The fragrance of the lotus leaf is the first thing you’ll smell once you unwrap this parcel filled with mushroom-loaded glutinous rice. But we're not fans of mushrooms and find the flavour too earthy for our liking. The very sticky glutinous rice is slightly overcooked.

The dumpling skin itself is smooth and silky, while the cabbage and turnip filling gives this a nice crunch. A quick dip in the accompanying chilli-vinegar sauce and this classic Chinese dish becomes very moreish - we don't even miss meat.

This sausage roll is not on the dim sum menu. The meatless sausage is soft and not very flavourful, and is the only dish that uses fungus-based protein instead of soy. The pastry shell, which was supposed to be crispy, turned soggy during the delivery. We might just stick to real sausage rolls for now.

These 'nuggets' look and smell like the real thing. Cute. It has the same tender bite as a McNugget with a peppery hint. If we had a blind taste test, we wouldn’t have been able to distinguish this from a chicken nugget. Though quite tasty, we must say the pricing is very steep for six nugget pieces.

Vegan dim sum is a great idea for those who don't eat meat, though Vegamama's offerings have a mix of hits and misses. But the better picks are very good substitutes for the real deal. Our only deterrent is the price - you'll be paying a pretty penny for the effort of making soy protein dim sum taste like meat. We say order this for your vegan food-averse friend as a treat to introduce them to meat-free meals.

Order via delivery here. Also available on GrabFood or FoodPanda (subjected to a delivery radius).

Photos: Merrilyn Teng