Address - Tokyo-to, Shibuya-ku, Shibuya 3-9-2 Opening hours - 11:30 to 14:30 and 17:00 to 20:00. Closed on Sundays Map - Yes Telephone - 3486-0281 Menu - In Japanese CC - No

I am not a fanatic meat eater, and yet in the course of time I have developed a certain aversion to vegetarian restaurants and vegetarian food. Part of it is due to what in my opinion is vegetarian zealotry and the abundance in it of holy cows like integral rice, but mainly it's because what you usually get there is some sort of brown slop that doesn't taste like much. Why is it so hard to eat well at a vegetarian restaurant? Go to Basho and you will see what I mean. I have read lots of positive reviews of the place, but I personally think that if it wasn't vegetarian, it would have gone out of business already.
And it shouldn't have to be that way: just think of a plate of Turkish mezze, or a pizza margherita, a dish of spinach lasagne, a Thai papaya salad, Indian channa masala: what could be more colorful, visually pleasing and tasty than those? And yet they are vegetarian dishes of good standing. The one, great exception among vegetarian restaurants is Nataraj, a vegetarian restaurant whose menu is a proof of what you can achieve with an intelligent use of spices.

Now, Shizenkan II is the surviving half of what used to be small vegetarian restaurant chain, an old and respected restaurant run by a Japanese woman who is obviously very serious about the whole business, even though one cannot help but frown at finding out that the last order is at 8:00 PM.
Without looking at the menu, you wouldn't even be able to tell it isn't a rather ordinary coffee shop. The list of dishes isn't terribly long, but it's adequate and includes five different sets priced from 2500 to 4500. You can of course order a-la-carte, too, and dishes are in general very reasonably priced . Among the drinks there are red, white and rosé wines, plus umeshu, sake, organic coffee and organic herb teas. Calorie indications tell you that you can have a full meal here with just 500 calories. All in all, I found what I expected. What's original isn't particularly good, what's good isn't particularly original and there is little coherence and consistency in the menu outside the fact that there's no meat. Dishes are basically vegetarian variations of traditional Japanese classics, like tofu chahan, tofu misoshiru, and so forth. I ordered a gluten cutlet curry rice set and my friend a Yakusairokkokuzen, a bento containing 30 different things, like tenpura, pickles, rice, etc., not very different from what you could get anywhere else.
In conclusion, if you like vegetarian restaurants, go to Shizenkan: it’s a classic of its kind and you will like it.