Japanese vegan deliciousness. You’ve got a birthday coming up and you’re looking for a restaurant that will cater to a large group containing both rabid meat eaters and vegans.
Where do you go?
Just a few years back, this scenario would have created a conundrum and, with it, the frustrating task of extensively researching the options. Happily, if you’re lucky enough to live in Ponsonby or surrounds, those miserable days are over.
Sometimes, it feels like every other restaurant or cafe is now offering vegan options, and not just 'we’ll take the bacon off', or those dull culinary staples that tend to lack both tongue-teasing excitement and protein.
It can still be hard, however, to find an eatery that does it for the right reasons. Janken - meaning rock, paper, scissors - on Jervois Road is a Japanese restaurant that’s been around for six years, but never rests on its laurels. Its proprietors seem proud of the vegan items on its menu. Better still, its plant-based options continue to grow in number, and you can tell they’re coming from the right place, because it’s not a static menu, but one that keeps on innovating.
The ambience at Janken is relaxed and the service is typically Japanese: polite and discrete. If you’re busy eating and chatting you hardly even notice the wait staff and everything is easy.
The lunch menu is more limited than the dinner selection, but still features some exceptional vegan fare, including a steaming hotpot and an impressive-looking bento box on steroids that makes you feel like royalty.
For fish eaters with a conscientious bent, Janken gets all its seafood from sustainable sources, and its food is cooked with a minimum of oil. The selection of dinner dishes for vegans is so delectable that it’s hard to settle on which one to order. These include the aforesaid steaming creamy vegetable nabe (hotpot) of seasonal vegetables, fried tofu and kale mocha dumpling in creamy soy milk broth; the shojin organic tofu with goma (sesame) sauce; and the rei-men: organic kumara noodle with assorted vegetables, wakame seaweed and deep-fried tofu simmered in a sweet soy broth.
And for those going all the way, there’s a wealth of vegan starters, and the entree of steamed buns with dates miso eggplant is to die for.
Japanese food is typically difficult for vegans, with its emphasis on fish and seafood and its infiltration into dishes that would appear to be meat free but usually aren’t, like miso soup. It’s a great pity, because it’s a cuisine that’s light but balanced, nutritious and genuinely life-giving. Thank goodness, then, for fusion Japanese restaurants like Janken, whose vegan meals not only recognise that there’s a market for vegan Japanese food in New Zealand, but whose willingness to come up with satisfying and delicious vegan dishes seems to come from a deeper wellspring. (GARY STEEL)
JANKEN, 158 Jervois Road, T: 09 360 0555, www.facebook.com/JANKEN158