As a vegan Chinese restaurant, Su Guan makes it onto all of the “vegan in Florence” lists that you can find on the internet.  They make an absolute standout dish that I have never seen before, Salt and Pepper Corn.  They use the salt and pepper seasoning and very light batter coating used with salt and pepper shrimp but apply it to corn kernels.  The corn is cooked perfectly so it still pops when you chew it and the sweetness of the corn does the same thing with the salt and pepper seasoning that good, sweet shrimp do, but the corn takes it to eleven.   The dish is crunchy, sweet, salty and pepper spicy and we ordered it twice.  The sauteed veggies with noodles was also excellent and had a beautifully light sauce.  As a plus they serve beer in giant size, mighty bottles.  Their opening hours seem to be a little idiosyncratic, one night we went there when they were listed as being open and were told by the guy delivering veggies that they were not opening for another hour.

The Dumplings: Unfortunately, the dumplings we had at Su Guan were not good.  We got the trio of dumplings, which appears to be three styles of dumplings, with three dumplings per style.  The menu lists the filling as being , seitan, bamboo, lotus root, veggies, pickled mustard greens, mushroom, celery and dragon fruit juice.  It is unclear if each style of dumplings had a different subset of these ingredients, because they all tasted the same, bland.  I was looking forward to the pickled mustard greens expecting them to provide a pickled or fermented kick, but I got nothing.  The main thing that distinguished the dumplings was the different color wrappers.   The dumplings were also way over cooked and were served crowded on the plate so that the dumplings stuck to each other.  It was impossible to pick the dumplings up without the gummed together wrappers ripping.

The Location: Su Guan is a little north of the main tourist section of town, at 22 via della Scalia, near the Piazza and Basilica di Santa Maria Novella.  Be aware the Google maps app shows it having two locations on via della Scalia, the first at #22 and the second further down inside the Hotel Alba Palace.  Su Guan is just down the street from an excellent pub called Joshua Tree, which has a great selection of beer. an extensive selection of whisky and very knowledgeable bar tenders.  Plus, they play a solid 90’s grunge sound track and have soccer on some large screens.  This is a great place to check out before dinner at Su Guan.