Join Chef Amanda Cohen of NYC's Dirt Candy Restaurant on a Culinary Tour of Tokyo, Where She's Unearthed Her Favorite Vega
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ADVERTISEMENT Eating Vegan in Tokyo Join Chef Amanda Cohen of NYC’s Dirt Candy restaurant on a culinary tour of Tokyo, where she’s unearthed her favorite vegan and vegetarian bites—from steaming bowls of ramen to silky strands of yuba to traditional kaiseki meals and tea-time wagashi treats okyo is an obvious creamy soft curds and firm bricks destination for sushi, ramen ready for frying. Here, she also found and yakitori, but an influx an unexpected treat: warm cups of Tof international visitors has amazake, a sweet drink made from made an impression on the cuisine of fermented rice, which is also served this megacity, bringing more vegan as soft-serve “ice cream” here and vegetarian options to the table year-round. For more soy delights, — and even to the cocktail bar. Chef Cohen went north to Senjuazuma, Amanda Cohen of New York City’s Adachi City where Uzukino Honten, Dirt Candy, a fully plant-based a yuba factory during the week, restaurant, went to see what the city transforms into a destination serve- had to offer. Forgoing the usual yourself steam tray brunch spot on pork-based broth, a number of the the weekends. The owners of city’s best ramen shops now have Uzukino Honten also run a haute vegan offerings. Cohen’s favorite was cuisine multi-course kaiseki Afuri’s, which combines a shio (salt) restaurant, Tsurutokame, helmed by base with noodles made from radish an all-female staff, who shop daily at and konjac plant and a kaleidoscope the Toyosu vegetable market, and roll of seasonal vegetables cooked in out a new tasting menu every few different ways for texture. In her weeks. The restaurant offers a search for exemplary tofu, Cohen vegetarian menu in addition to its visited Futaba Tofu in Nihonbashi standard one, with dishes that apply Ningyocho, to taste deliciously traditional ideas to unconventional flavor combinations, such as soba noodles with black truffles. Like kaiseki, shojin ryori (vegan cooking) was originally derived from tea culture and has been practiced by Buddhist monks in Japan since the 13th century. Chef Daisuke Nomura’s family has run the Michelin-starred Daigo, an old school shojin ryori restaurant, since the 1950s, but at his own restaurant, Sougo, Nomura-san thrillingly breaks the mold using modernist techniques. Giving a new voice to vegetarian cooking, one of Cohen’s favorite discoveries of the trip was the eight-seat Mique run by Keiko Seto in the Higashigaoka neighborhood of Meguro City in an old roll-up garage. Seated at the small blonde wood bar, Afuri Ramen Cohen was treated to Seto’s whimsical riffs on comfort food, transforming vegetables and grains into intricate salads and savory bites that would satisfy even the most critical carnivore. Bar Ben Fiddich Sougo Umezono Mique CHEF 1 AFURI’s Irodori 2 Keiko Seto’s 3 Chef Daisuke 4 For tea-time 5 At BAR BEN AMANDA Yasai No Vegan stylish vegan gallery Nomura’s SOUGO wagashi sweets, FIDDICH in Shinjuku, Ramen has an MIQUE, serves is the promising Cohen suggests owner/bartender COHEN’S impressively clean dynamic bites, includ- future of shojin ryori, the 150-year- Hiroyasu Kayama FAVORITE broth flavored with ing fu-katsu, wheat serving modernist old UMEZONO’s makes drinks from VEGAN kelp and mushrooms. gluten cooked in the interpretations of signature awazenzai, fruits, vegetables PICKS Every seasonal bowl style of tonkatsu classics, like walnut warm millet porridge and herbs from includes a combina- (fried pork cutlet) goma dofu and topped with sweet his family’s garden, tion of raw, steamed, and a smooth “pâté” seaweed salad with bean paste, with a including his roasted and grilled made from gently tokoroten noodles side of salty pickled signature Daikon vegetables cooked mushrooms, plum seeds Gin & Tonic lentils and walnuts.