VeganMoFo 2019: Le Sel Organic

Posted on August 15, 2019 by Jenny

Kyoto is definitely the place to go for good vegan ramen – we had two of the best of our holiday there, firstly at Engine Ramen and then here at Le Sel Organic. This place was quite an unexpected find. We were actually en route to another restaurant when Dr HH spotted a “vegan” sign in the window and we dashed in before my hanger could get the better of me!

This place does serve meat, but had one vegan set option. We had to order from a vending machine, but of course we couldn’t operate it ourselves! It was quite a fancy looking place, compared to most of our more casual holiday eateries, but it was also quite relaxed. I mean, how fancy can a place be if it has a vending machine?! There were only six seats, all set up facing the kitchen so you could watch the solo chef preparing your food. And what a feast he made!

If only we’d taken a close up of this little appetiser! It’s hard to get any real sense of it from this distance, but it was seared courgette, caramelised onion puree, and shaved walnuts. It was a flavour sensation!

Next up was this exciting concoction! We got three broccoli ravioli, which were topped with broccoli powder (who even knew that was a thing?!) and some fried, crispy triangles. The texture was great, and the broccoli flavour was really intense, which can only be a good thing in my book.

The next course was a bit more boring, as you can see. But before you dismiss it as just rice and veg, note that the rice was tea-infused (nice and subtle), and the pickled Japanese vegetables (the chef didn’t know the English name and we couldn’t place it) were amazing.

And here’s that ramen I was talking about! It was just magnificent. It was a really hearty bowl, with plenty of noodles and a relatively thick broth. The flavour was coming from the earthy broth and the delicious charred cabbage on top. It would almost be worth the cost of flying back to Japan just to have this again!

After all of that, we had high hopes for dessert. Alas, this was the only disappointment of the meal. There was a layer of caramel sauce at the bottom, topped with orange shaved ice. The sauce was lovely and sweet, but the orange was insanely bitter. I’m not sure if that’s a typical Japanese orange or if we got a bad one, but it was not pleasant at all, and there wasn’t enough sauce to balance it out.

We can allow them one misstep though, when everything else was so good! It was all wonderfully flavoured, beautifully presented, and dutifully explained in English!

What’s the word dessert you’ve been served? And did everyone know about broccoli powder besides me?

Posted in Travel, Vegan Mofo | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

VeganMoFo 2019: Premarché Gelateria, Kyoto

Posted on August 14, 2019 by Jenny

I often look back fondly on my summer holiday a couple of years ago when Dr HH and I toured the north of Italy and ate gelato every day of our two week trip. Every day! I was well-prepared for the fact that Japan wouldn’t match that (though there is apparently a lot of vegan soft serve around – somehow we kept missing it), so we were delighted when we found this one place in Kyoto with a tempting vegan menu.

There was a separate vegan menu, and cabinet – that’s what I like to see! There were some pretty wild flavours, but I played it safe with Belgian chocolate and rice milk. They complemented each other well. The chocolate was very rich and creamy, a real treat. The rice milk was a bit bland…I don’t really know what I was expecting though. I think I played it a bit too safe really.

Dr HH certainly did not! He ordered one scoop which was some kind of nuts and coffee flavour I’d never heard of before (he liked it a lot), and the other scoop was excitingly called ninja! This turned out to be black sesame flavoured. I saw a lot of black sesame ice cream when I was living in Hong Kong, but this was the first time I’d spotted a vegan variety. It was so delicious, easily the best of the bunch. Thank goodness that one of us is adventurous, anyway!

Would you order ninja ice cream?!

 

Posted in Travel, Vegan Mofo | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

VeganMoFo 2019: Veggie Cafe, Kyoto

Posted on August 13, 2019 by Jenny

One thing I observed in Japan was that they weren’t always particularly creative at naming things. Pretty much every Indian restaurant we saw was called “Everest” or “Kathmandu” (not sure if we can technically blame the Japanese for that one, I suppose…), and it seemed like a lot of the vegan places we went to had the word “veg” in the title. So it was with this place, Veggie Cafe.

It truly was a cafe, quite small and cosy, but it was also almost unbearably hot, with no fan or air con on. It was a one man show, so it’s probably just as well it was so small – if a few tables arrived at the same time, you might have a bit of a wait for your food as he prepared it all himself.

The menu was all western, which is what we were in the mood for on this day. Dr HH ordered the burger this time (usually it seems to be me who’s always ordering burgers!), and it was served in a pita. He chose the “hamburger” on the menu, and deduced that it was actually quite a beany patty (with tofu as well), but it got a bit lost in the accompaniments. All in all, it was nice but unspectacular. He loved the chips though – they were perfect little wedges!

And I got the lasagne, which appeared to be freshly made (or assembled, at least). The ragout was very good indeed, really herby. And as you can see, he didn’t skimp on herbs on the top either, it was very well-seasoned! The tofu cheese was nice and the crumbs on top added some nice texture. My only complaint was that in amongst the traditional vegetables for a lasagne were some Asian leafy greens that I personally didn’t think were a great addition. I’m probably too much of a traditionalist!

For dessert they had cinnamon rolls on the menu, but we managed to turn them down because we had our eyes on another prize just along the road. More on that tomorrow…

What’s the most unorthodox ingredient you’ve encountered in a vegan lasagne?

Posted in Travel, Vegan Mofo | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

VeganMoFo 2019: Engine Ramen, Kyoto

Posted on August 12, 2019 by Jenny

In Kyoto we found one of the best eateries of our trip, plus one of the best attractions, so it seems only right to cover them both together! Starting with the attraction: on a bit of a whim we found ourselves venturing to the outskirts of the city (or so it felt – my geography is not very good to this might be an exaggeration) looking for otagi nenbutsu-ji, a temple with over one thousand little stone statues with varying expressions and poses.

There were so many fun details to spot – we could have spent hours there poring over each one. It’s easy to get templed-out in Kyoto, but this one was unlike anything else we’d seen – it felt as much like art as it did a temple, and it was very entertaining.

There weren’t too many tourists there either as it’s a bit out of the way, so it is well worth a visit. It was our top temple of the trip, and we did see quite a few!

We also ate quite a few bowls of ramen, and probably got the best of the bunch at Engine Ramen in Kyoto! This was a relatively rare instance where we found an omni place with vegan options – veggie gyoza and two different kinds of ramen, all labelled vegan on the menu. It was one of those places that’s fairly common in Japan where you place your order at a vending machine – I was not a fan. They had to have a member of staff standing by at all times to show people how it worked, so I didn’t feel like it even saved time (or saved people the discomfort of human interaction). Still, it’s always nice to pay before you eat so you don’t have to worry about that at the end.

We both ordered the gyozas, and they were very good indeed. Essentially, they were little samosas – they had an excellent pastry exterior, and the filling was really flavoursome.

And we each ordered a different kind of ramen. Mine was the beany ramen, which had an excitingly creamy broth (presumably from blitzed beans). It was the first time we had a properly thick broth, and we were both wild about it! There were some black fungus bits in it as well, which had a great texture and looked suitably dramatic too. This was sensational!

Meanwhile, Dr HH ordered the zingy ramen. He said that it really was zingy, with a good citrus twist. His broth was also quite thick, and really rich with a good spicy kick to it. We agreed that this was even better than the ramen at T’s, which had so far set the standard for great broth.

Amusingly, the ramen came with a disposable paper apron to wear to avoid splashing. We thought we were too classy for this…so we wore our broth splashes with pride!

Is ramen with a thick broth common in your neck of the woods? And have you ever seen such a fun temple as this one?

Posted in Travel, Vegan Mofo | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

VeganMoFo 2019: Kinatei, Nara

Posted on August 11, 2019 by Jenny

Nara was one of the places that popped up on every Japanese itinerary I looked at while planning our trip, generally as a day trip from either Kyoto or Osaka. We decided to do it from Kyoto, and it was a reasonably short train ride away. I was pleased to see a few place with vegan options on Happy Cow, meaning that we didn’t need to take a convenience store packed lunch with us: hurray!

The place with the most Happy Cow reviews was Kinatei, a vegetarian place with mostly vegan options. It sounded so popular with tourists that we decided to rush there right from the train station to be there for opening time, fill up on noodles, and then get to the sightseeing. It turned out to be a brilliant plan!

There was a small menu – I think it was pretty much ramen with udon noodles or ramen with soba. For a little appetiser, we were given these pickles, which were colourful but not that remarkable.

Dr HH got the soba noodles, which he said came with exceptionally flavoursome tofu but a relatively bland but pleasant broth.

As usual, I only had eyes for the udon! The noodles were fat and delightful, but otherwise I agreed with Dr HH’s assessment: amazing tofu, pretty meh on the broth.

Most excitingly though, we got some actual Japanese sweets for dessert! Well, some fruit too (YAWN!). These little balls were sweet and sticky, and a very nice treat after lunch.

This place was extremely tourist-friendly, but I would say almost aggressively so – service was very interactive. We were handed a guest book to write a review almost as soon as we got through the door, and were told to put stickers on the wall map showing where we came from. The owner was very chatty, and also took a picture of us and asked for my email address to send it to us. It was nice in a way…but I just wanted to have my lunch in peace! I think some people would love this kind of service and a chance to get to know the locals, but it makes me feel quite awkward. I would still recommend it though, the owner was nice and the food set us up perfectly for an afternoon in Nara.

There are some exciting temples in Nara, but the main thing I knew about it in advance was that there were lots of deer wandering free. Obviously I’m an animal lover…but it’s very much a theoretical love, and I’m terrified of every animal I encounter in the wild. So to me, a trip to Nara was like a trip to Jurassic Park when the fences are down. This was not helped by the fact that I saw the deer in this picture use its nose to press the button to open a shop door. Much like the velociraptors, the deer have learned to open doors!

Most people were getting up close to the deer, stroking them and feeding them – many even manhandling them, which made me feel very uncomfortable. I’m not convinced that most people were acting in the best interests of the deer. I was a bit anxious about getting close to these fearsome beasts…

…in fact, this was as close as I was willing to get!

Do you share my terror of animals in the wild? Has anyone ever taken your picture in a restaurant?

Posted in Travel, Vegan Mofo | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

VeganMoFo 2019: Veg Out, Kyoto

Posted on August 10, 2019 by Jenny

The worst thing about going on holiday is all the other tourists: why are they all so annoying?! I’m sure lots of our fellow adventurers were mad with Dr HH and me when we went to the famous inari temple. I think we did things right by blazing our way up regardless of other people’s photo ops, but it seemed like there were a lot of people harrumphing in our direction. I’m a firm believer that taking a photo with no people in the background is not a human right: if it happens, it happens. I don’t expect anyone else to get out of the way of my stupid photos, and so I’m not wasting my time while other people take nine million snaps trying to get just the right expression.

We got to this temple, with its famous 4km walkway or orange gates, bright and early to try to avoid the crowds, and it worked pretty well. We quick marched to get past the crowds at the start, then had most of the walk more or less to ourselves after that, meaning we got to savour the sights and take all the silly photos we wanted.

Here I am dressed as one of the gates…not intentional, I assure you.

We also encountered some silly tourists back in Kyoto at Veg Out, a lovely light, spacious spot overlooking the river. There was a pretty small menu, but the options were fairly tempting. I ordered the panini, which was filled with roasted veg and allegedly tofu feta, though there was clearly none in mine – not a big deal, but they should have told me when I ordered. It was tasty and filling, a solid lunch.

Dr HH ordered this assorted plate, with some very exciting goujons in the centre, accompanied by fairly bland tofu, nice seaweed, and a few other vegetable sides. It also came with rice and soup. He declared it nice, but a bit unremarkable.

Dessert was a winner though! We ordered strawberry and choc chip muffins which had a great bake and flavour and weren’t too sweet – which seemed to be a hallmark of Japanese desserts, nothing seemed super sugary. It was a bit weird that it came chopped in half like this (everyone knows that the muffin top is all that!), but we could work with that.

The first thing I wrote in my notebook about this place was “Tourist friendly, nice service”, but clearly someone disagreed with me – some other western tourists arrived and wanted to order the panini as well…but they wanted to know exactly which vegetables were in it. They were trying to request some specific vegetables (lettuce, of all things!), while the poor staff tried to explain that they couldn’t really pick and choose. Eventually the tourists declared, “We really need to come back into the kitchen and see your whole vegetable selection” – when this was vetoed, they complained, “Well, coming here was a massive waste of time!”

In conclusion, tourists are the worst. Still, this wasn’t quite as bad as the time we went to Nottingham and some other people in our breakfast spot brought their own sausages and asked the chef to cook them!

Have you ever demanded to see what a cafe has in stock so that you can personalise the lunch option? Or accidentally dressed as the attraction you’re going to see?!

Posted in Travel, Vegan Mofo | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

VeganMoFo 2019: Organic House Salute, Kyoto

Posted on August 9, 2019 by Jenny

From Nagoya we moved on to one of my favourite destinations of the trip, and possibly the one that I was most excited about: Kyoto. I was expecting a calmer pace of life than the other cities we’d visited, and lots of fun temples, and that’s basically what we got, though Kyoto is still a big city and thriving tourist spot, so it wasn’t entirely restful. It’s also quite a sprawling city, meaning that we spent a lot of time hustling between temples and, while there were plenty of vegan options, they weren’t always in our vicinity.

Organic House Salute was really close to our airbnb, so we headed straight there once we’d checked in. It wasn’t the most encouraging of places – it was small and dark, and a bit tricky to find. Also, we had to take off our shoes. How annoying!

Nevertheless, we persisted. The menu was quite small, and truthfully not that inspiring. Dr HH ordered the curry plate, which involved a nice but not mind-blowing vegetable curry, some very good coriander potatoes, and a sweet tofu side dish, along with rice and salad. The verdict was that it was solid but unremarkable.

I got the fish burger, which came with no accompaniments! The burger had a really good fishy taste, and the patty was pristine white inside – I’m really intrigued as to what it was made of. The toasted bun was great too. It was a good and fairly unusual burger, and I’m not sure I’ve had a fish burger before.

And out cake streak continued! Dr HH had this peach and cardamom cake, which was quite subtly flavoured.

I kept going with matcha, trying to make myself like it more. Again, the flavour was quite subtle, and just look at all that base! What fun!

Taking your shoes off in a restaurant: yay or nay?

Posted in Travel, Vegan Mofo | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

VeganMoFo 2019: Vegan in Nagoya

Posted on August 8, 2019 by Jenny

Nagoya only ended up on our Japanese itinerary because there was a sumo wrestling tournament on and we desperately wanted to see it. It was definitely worth going to the sumo, but the city itself was a fun place too and I’m glad we got to see it.

Along with a charming Japanese garden, we also visited the Toyota Museum, which was really fun. For one thing, there was a robot playing the violin! It really played it! It wobbled its head and everything. We also got to see some car assembly robots, which were really fascinating. I wasn’t expecting this museum to be my kind of thing (a bit too sciencey, perhaps), but it was truly excellent!

The sumo was a fun experience, but it was about 90% ceremony, 10% wrestling. It was interesting to watch, and the matches themselves were exciting, but there was a lot of waiting around for action while people bowed and squatted. It was really fun still.

And there were a few vegan places in town too, so hurray for that! When we arrived at lunchtime we made a beeline for Vegefirst, which was a tiny, mostly takeaway bento box place near the castle. It had already sold out at 1:15pm, but one local person arrived right behind us and the staff kindly agreed to hook us up with something.

There was no menu, we were simply given the daily set: brown rice with beans, some kind of tofu dumpling topped with sweet aubergine, various salads, and an excellent curried tofu scramble. We also got a pot of potent spice on the side! This wasn’t the most exciting meal, but it was a tasty, solid lunch, and it was quite a novelty for us. I really liked the idea of serving the little elements in separate cake cases, but found the plastic use a bit wasteful.

Our next spot was another fun little place, Vegi Kitchen GuGu, which was a cosy, laidback cafe. The daily specials menu was not in English, but the regular menu was – the staff spoke little English, but everything went smoothly. Dr HH ordered the tempura plate, because who could resist that?! We were expecting golden, crispy vegetables like we had in Kawaguchiko a couple of days earlier, but instead he was served a veritable nest of oily, salty tempura goodness, all merged together. It included corn, kale, and other good veg. He declared it delicious! It also came with some rice and a nice corn soup.

I got the same sides with mine, but they weren’t really necessary with my nugget plate (that may not have been the correct name, but let’s not kid ourselves: it’s a nugget plate).

The chicken nuggets were delicious, and the chips were nice but a wee bit pale. The vibrant pink sauce tasted unexpectedly of olives, which was nice, but I was not very happy that there was already ketchup on the chips when it was served. Let people decide their own level of sauciness! I like my chips dry, but Dr HH was delighted to take these saucy ones off my hands.

Then finally we found the first cake of the holiday! It was a barren few days, I can tell you. We both ordered the chocolate brownie, which was a nice cake but definitely not a brownie. It was not gooey at all, nor too sweet, but a very pleasant cake.

We were so impressed that we got a couple of slices of carrot and banana cake to take away for breakfast the next day. Alas, this one was surprisingly dry and flavourless – how can that happen with a banana cake?!

Our final stop in Nagoya was actually a familiar one: Itadaki Zen. We’ve previously visited one of these restaurants in London, so we were excited about going to a proper Japanese branch. I was less excited when I learned it was one of those places which requires you to remove your shoes on entry. Sigh. Anyway, we were there right at opening time and there was only one other customer the whole time, but service was painfully slow – we were watching our clocks so we could hop on a train to our next destination, but not much was happening. At least we got this little dish of seaweed and salad to keep us going in the long wait.

We both ordered lunch sets, with slight differences. Dr HH ordered the sushi, which I think was the only sushi we had in three weeks. These were tasty little morsels.

I ordered the nigiri, which were topped with carrot, mushrooms, avocado, and a giant mushroom. They were simple but delicious! Please note that these are not great for sharing, because obviously everyone wants that giant mushroom.

These dishes were the accompaniments to the main event, a big bowl of noodle soup! It was a good savoury broth, but paled in comparison to the magnificent offerings of T’s TanTan. One big point in its favour was that it was not scorching hot, meaning that we were able to slurp it with (relative) abandon. Usually it’s so hot, we don’t know how the locals can bear the temperatures as they’re slurping it down!

Clearly we were making up for lost time on the cake front – I got this chocolate mousse cake…

…and Dr HH got the matcha variety. Both were creamy, and pleasantly mildly flavoured. But, oh for a crunchy base! Cheesecakes with soft, soggy base layers are so disappointing, and a good biscuit base is quite elusive in the vegan world (at least in my circle).

Would you have relinquished that mushroom nigiri for your loved one? (I did!) And how outraged would you be if your chips arrived with ketchup already on them?

Posted in Travel, Vegan Mofo | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

VeganMoFo 2019: Vegan in Matsumoto

Posted on August 7, 2019 by Jenny

Matsumoto ended up on our Japanese itinerary purely because I saw a picture of this castle and wanted to visit it. And I’d say it was worth it, it was truly a work of art. We saw a few more castles during our travels, but this first one remained the best, possibly just because of that dazzling first impression.

While I loved the castle, it’s possible that there was actually something better in Matsumoto: a vegan cafe! We’d been to a lot of restaurants in our first few days in Japan, but I soon found myself craving a cosy little cafe. We finally found it in The Healthy Penguin, a cosy, friendly place run by a Glaswegian (which meant that the service was more in line with what we’re used to, rather than the hyper polite Japanese style).

They had three lunch options, all served until 2pm, though we arrived at 1:55pm and they still happily hooked us up. When we called in they had a burrito bowl, rainbow noodles, and avo toast. Dr HH enjoyed the noodles, which were fresh and zingy with some excellent textures and a sublime lime and peanut dressing – I could smell it across the table! Meanwhile, I went for the avo toast, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The bread was excellent, there was a generous helping of avocado, and the beetroot hummus was very tasty. Quite a treat!

There was only one dessert left, so we shared a portion of the raw raspberry and lemon tart. We don’t have a lot of faith in raw desserts, so we were relieved to see that this one was just a good old fashioned cheesecake! It was light and tasty, but a wee bit frozen in the centre. Still, this was a charming spot, and we had a really relaxing hour or so in there.

We didn’t actually have any Japanese food in Matsumoto, because in the evening we went along to Everest, an Indian restaurant. Happy Cow led us to believe there’d be some good vegan options, and so it was – there was nothing vegan marked on the menu, but the staff happily informed us of what we could have, and there were quite a few options, starting with the samosas! These were the highlight of the meal. The pastry was excellent, and the filling was really tasty. We weren’t expecting Indian food in Japan to be this good, so it was quite a pleasant surprise!

Dr HH went for his default order, chana masala. He declared it good but a bit too sweet, and bemoaned the presence of some unnecessary peppers. I was more impressed with my spinach and potato curry, which had a pleasant kick to it.

We shared a portion of garlic rice, which was mega garlicky, and and a few off-menu chapatis, which turned out a touch too thin and crispy, but we appreciated the effort, and some bread is always better than no bread!

I don’t usually eat in Indian restaurants on holiday because I suspect the food will never be mind-blowing, nor particularly unique to the place we’re visiting – but in Japan, these Indian restaurants became our safety choice when other vegan options were a bit thin on the ground. In Europe I feel like falafel is always my back up; in Japan, it was Indian food!

There were a few other spots with vegan options that popped up on Happy Cow as well, making Masumoto a good option for a short stay. There wasn’t loads to do, but it was really nice to be in a smaller city. And bonus points to them for having a local bus called the town sneaker!

Indian food, falafel, or something else entirely: what’s your emergency vegan spot on holiday?

 

Posted in Travel, Vegan Mofo | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

VeganMoFo 2019: Itaden, Kawaguchiko

Posted on August 6, 2019 by Jenny

One of my favourite things about our trip to Japan was that we’d planned so much variety. This was perfectly encapsulated in one particular day, when we woke up in a traditional ryokan in a small mountain town, spent the afternoon at a wild theme park with views of Mount Fuji (allegedly – it was so cloudy we couldn’t see a thing!), and then spent the night by a beautiful lake.

We were undecided about how to approach Mount Fuji. We didn’t want to climb it, because that would involve packing a lot of extra gear. So we thought it would be fun to go to the Fuji-Q Highland theme park and view the mountain from afar – from the top of the ferris wheel, essentially. But of course when we got there the weather was abysmal and we couldn’t see a thing beyond the theme park itself. So rest assured, Fuji is out there in the background somewhere. We didn’t see it, but at least we had a fun afternoon at a theme park!

Dr HH loved the rollercoasters and general wildness. I’m just a bit less adventurous (or as I would put it, extremely safety conscious), so I was delighted to see these helpful signs telling us which rides were suitable for dogs. While I’m not sure how good an idea it is to take dogs on any rides, these provided excellent guidance on whether or not a ride was too wild for me.

So here I am looking happy and calm on the teacups, knowing that if a dog can handle it, so can I!

After a wild afternoon of rides, we made the short trip to Kawaguchiko, a little town sitting on one of the lakes surrounding Mount Fuji. Again, we’d expected quite a view, but the clouds scuppered us once more. We were not scuppered on the food front, at least! I was surprised to see that there were quite a few vegan options in town. We only had eyes for Itaden though, as it was a tempura restaurant! What could be better than a whole restaurant dedicated to tempura?!

The first page of the menu confidently states that vegan options are marked in the menu and egg-less batter can be requested either verbally or by pointing at this page in the menu – I was a big fan of that! It turned out that there was only one option that was marked as vegan, but it was a vegetable (yasai) assorted tempura set, so we had no complaints. You could pay a little extra to upgrade for unlimited rice and miso soup, so we went for that.

The batter was lovely and light, and the veg was tender (though Dr HH found the aubergine slice a bit disappointing). The cherry tomatoes and green beans were a bit unexciting, but the yam and pumpkin were beautiful, and the two mushrooms were sublime. This was an excellent meal!

While the food was great and we loved this little town, I was a little dismayed by the service. Not because it was bad, but because it was disconcertingly polite. The staff began every sentence with the word “Sorry”, which made me extremely anxious – especially when it turned out there was nothing to apologise for! It’s safe to say that I returned to Prague with a newfound appreciation for brusque Czech service!

Would you go on any rides that were deemed too scary for dogs? Have you ever been to a tempura restaurant?

Posted in Travel, Vegan Mofo | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments