Korinbo

June 23, 2017 Nakano / Koenji,Taiwanese

Taiwanese Vegan Menu

Review

Korinbo is a vegan restaurant of Taiwanese.

Five pungent roots in Buddhism such as garlic, onion, leek, etc. are also not used in the menu.
But it only an egg is used for some dishes but they don’t use it if you ask in advance.
This is a small restaurant with 10 seats but it looks like popular restaurant that vegan from overseas also visit here.

This Korinbo is inside Nakano Broadway that is a famous shopping mall filled with anime and figure goods and shops.
So if you are an anime fan you can also enjoy Japanese anime culture here.
Yes, I’m one of them, haha.

The time I visited was about 6 pm and looked like I was the first customer at night time.
I took a seat of the bar counter.

The menus I could see were fried Chinese noodle, udon noodle, fried rice noodles, Shojin cutlet set menu, etc.
All the foods looked good so I was thinking which one I should take.
Then I found Today’s Special on the menu so I chose it.
It was 970 yen so it is about $8.5.
Reasonable price!

Owner was Taiwanese and asked me if I can eat egg.
I’m not a perfect vegan but semi-vegan so I can eat that I told her it is OK.
If you are a perfect vegan, you just tell her and I think she makes the dish without using egg.
She also told me the egg she uses is not a fertile egg but an unfertilized egg.

About 10 minutes later, here the dish came!

Looks good!

You might thought what is this one.

This is bitter melon.
Have you ever tried it?
I think most of you say no, as I think it is a rare vegetable in overseas.
I myself once grew this bitter melon and cooked it.
It is actually bitter taste so I think there are people who are not good at this vegetable.
But I like it and I ate it here, yes bitter taste but tasted good!

The cutlet was freshly-fried, crispy and taste was also very good!
Of course the cutlet is made of vegetables.
Yellow one is yellow pickled radish called Takuwan in Japanese and it is also one of my favorites.

While I enjoy the dish, I had a small talk with her.
To my big surprise, she told me she opened this restaurant more than 30 years ago.
Since then, she kept cooking alone and now can also speak Japanese well.

More than 30 years and by herself in overseas!!
Competition of restaurant business is so intense here in Tokyo and every year restaurants or cafes close and new ones open.
She must have gone through many difficulties alone, I could not help but respect her.

Actually I came visit here again and at the time I ordered Shojin cutlet set as she recommended me this set.
This set was also good taste!!

This time there are many customers around me and from the talk of them I could find most of the customers know the owner since long time ago so they were regular customers.

This is a small restaurant but here is the one loved by customers since old days.
More than 30 years of the history shows it!
Recommended vegan restaurant in Nakano!!

Google Map of Korinbo