Vegan Healing Cafe Shibuya

Hi All!

I tried this restaurant, Vegan Healing Cafe --- http://www.vegancafe.jp/ in Shibuya last night. Boy, I must say, it was quite a disappointing experience : ( Unfortunately I don't have a photo because my camera ran out of battery, but I had Dahl curry. Let's start from the beginning:

First of all, Shibuya is a very crowded place---but this restaurant was on a quiet street and was empty when I arrived, except for one woman eating at a table outside and smoking. I'm not against smoking, but when I expect to have a "healing meal", it felt ironic and disappointing to see someone smoking at this restaurant. It turns out later that that woman happened to be one of the waitresses taking a break and having an early dinner---something you never see staff do in a Japanese restaurant.

I walked into the dinky place and almost wanted to turn around and walk back out, but I figured I would at least give the food a try since I went all the way there. The lighting was dark, the seats hard and cold, and there was a baked goods glass case that was glowing in the darkness with the most obnoxious refrigeration sound.

The curry was so bad I wanted to cry. Yes, that bad. Heck, they put wakame and daikon on the side for sweetner instead of the usual pickles, which did not go very well with the dish. I could hear the only two staff messing around and chit-chatting in the small kitchen.

I was very curious about the falafel burgers, but the experience of going to this place was bad enough that the potential deliciousness of the falafel is not worth me going back to try.

Ok, I might as well put some of the positives: they had many macrobiotic and vegan books library, several books in english, that I was able to flip through. Also, they sell a few items in the front of the store including soy meat.

Oh well : (

• • MacrobiLotus