It's Vegetable

I already mentioned it in my last posting: this time I will recommend my favorite non-Japanese restaurant in Tokyo! I don't want to deprive this wonderful little place from you, it is a Taiwanese eatery in Kinshichô called "It's Vegetable". And the name is the motto of this place! Everything is made of vegetables and soy - no meat, no fish, no milk, no egg - let's call it vegan :)
I wanted to check out this place when I visited Tokyo on a saturday to spend a day free of work just with meeting friends, shopping, and eatingeatingeating... After having read about it here, I suggested going there for dinner and a friend of mine wanted to make a reservation for us there. Unfortunatly when she called, they told her that they will have a privat party that night and aren't open for public. I was so dissapointed! However since we had already arranged to meet at Kinshichô station, we thought "let's just go there and see what it looks like. Maybe we can throw a glance on the food and see if it is worth coming back another time". It is not far from the station and we found it easily because of the big sign:


And yeah, it looked so promising that my friend just went right inside and started talking with the guys who were having their party there and with the restaurant owner and told them that she is here with a bunch of hungry vegetarian (ehem, actually I was the only strict vegetarian around, but well..) friends from all over the world, who came aaaaaallll the way, nearly starving etc etc and asked them if it weren't possible that we joined their party! Hehehehe... They seemed to be amused and also happy to have some girls around they could practice their English with, closed ranks and let us to stay. We had to pay a little bit and had all kinds of food and drinks, nice conversations and a lot of fun! And the food was great! Actually so great that I nearly forgot to take pictures. You can see that it is already half-eaten on my photo. It was an array of vegetables, mushrooms and all kind of Tofu / soy dishes (maybe also Gluten, I wasn't so sure about that) that were imitateting meat or fish - but in an extraordinary delicious and convincing way! Usually I am not such a big fan of such things like mock chicken wings or Tofu Schnitzel or all that stuff. I don't miss meat because there are so many other awsome things to eat in this world, so that I don't even think of meat as something edible anymore (no wonder after being a vegetarian for more than half of my life). However at "It's Vegetable" it just tasted so perfect, that even my non-vegetarian friends were amazed and loved it.
There was a dish that didn't just have the consistency but also really tasted and looked like fried fish, another dish was with slices of vegan "chicken" and there was Cha han, fried rice that seemed to have a lot of egg inside, but uh uh, all vegan ingrediences!
Very tasty and pretty different to Japanese Tsukemono were the Taiwanese style pickles.. Mmmh, well actually there was nothing I didn't like of all the things they brought out of the kitchen into the small, packed restaurant that night! And I guess that is true for any other day, without Party, too. Ok, I love Taiwanese food anyway, so they didn't have hard times to convince me of their dishes, but please believe me: it was really good: crunchy veggies, delicious mushrooms, many different kinds of tastes from spicy to sour to savoury - just right!
For lunch time they offer an all you can eat buffet for just 850yen and during dinner time you can order a la carte or also go for the buffet that is 1200yen then. Very good deal, I think! Beside the fantastic food, there is also just a very nice and homey atmosphere in this family-run restaurant. You can feel that the people who run this place do it with love and are very committed to the goodnes of vegetarian food. It is one of those likeable places you just see and know it will be fine. So please try yourself :)

It's Vegetable
4-1-9 Kinshichô, Sumida-ku, Tokyo
Phone: 03-3625-1245

11:00~14:00 all you can eat buffet only
18:00~20:00 all you can eat buffet or a la carte