I’m not sure I’d even heard of mapo tofu before we visited Spicy Moon in New York, but since then Dr HH and I have been obsessed with it. We make it regularly at home, and if we are outside of Prague and see it on a menu (we believe there is no vegan mapo here) we eagerly order it. So imagine our delight at finding out there was an all-vegan mapo tofu restaurant in Tokyo! We had to squeeze it into our itinerary somehow.

It was quite far from Shinjuku, but Tokyo is such a massive city that that wasn’t too surprising. It seemed to be in a relatively quiet area anyway, and there was no queue, so we were very pleased about that.

Dr HH was feeling bold and reckless, so he decided to try the cheese curry mapo. It sounds a bit too chaotic to me – cheese, curry, and mapo are three things that I’m not sure belong together! It was a tasty curry sauce, but that overpowered anything we’d think of as traditionally mapo in the seasoning. The cheese didn’t melt, and didn’t really add anything either. He was hoping it would be a bit more fusion, but it was predominantly a Japanese curry with some tofu and cheese. It was still a tasty dish, but just not quite what he was looking for.

I got a simple mapo tofu and I was very happy indeed. It hit all the mapo tofu notes I was looking for, without being too spicy – perfect for me! The texture was good, the Sichuan tingle was there, and, paired with some rice, it was a hearty portion.

We all got gyoza too and they were delicious – Mother HH got a plate for her main dish, as she doesn’t like tofu enough to try a mapo, and Dr HH and I got them as sides. The dumplings were quite small and very crispy, which we loved. They were filled with some nicely seasoned silken tofu, and were a big hit with all three of us.

Dr HH got a cacao tiramisu for dessert, while the rest of us were full. He reported that this was fine, but nothing special. It didn’t have any soaked biscuits, and it mostly felt like silken tofu sitting in a sweet syrup with a dusting of coffee and cocoa on top, so the texture was all very soft. He wouldn’t get this again, but it’s always fun to try something new.

Also on the mains menu were spicier versions of mapo, as well as a white sesame mapo, so there are a few different things to try, and you can opt for noodles rather than rice if you prefer. It was an exciting looking menu, and I’m sorry we only got to go once. Let’s dream that they open a branch in Prague one day!