Our vegan friend, Kate, came to town with her mom as she is going to college nearby starting this Fall. She and her mom, who made the reservations, introduced us to a San Franciso restaurant named Shizen, a vegan sushi bar and izakaya.
Other posts I have written regarding Kate and our vegan tour around the East Bay of Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville, Albany, and El Cerrito are: Kate’s Vegan Bay Area Adventure, Vegan Soul Food, The Butcher’s Son, and A Day Trip to Greens.
14 Aug: This is being done as an experiment. You will read as I create this post. So expect changes throughout the day as I work on this piece.
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Finding Shizen
Kate was accepted to a local college, and as the typical “rite of passage” from childhood to adulthood, her mom Jane accompanied Kate to her first steps into higher learning, and independence. As they were staying with us, and given our whirlwind tour of vegan restaurants last time she was here, Kate wanted to try out a new-to-us restaurant in San Francisco.
From the East Coast her mom had arranged reservations and we went. Luckily, we were a party of four, the maxmum size they seat.
Due to misunderstandings, our reservation was accidently set for the previous week, and yet, although fully booked, they found a way to have us seated at the sushi making bar within minutes of our original reservation time. There we met Jimi, who then answered every question we had about the food and the preparation tehniques. He was a wonderful host, very caring and seemed to really enjoy what he was doing. He also made most of our dishes.
This restaurant combines very classic shojin and sushi techniques with local non-fish and non-meat ingredients that have been processed: dried, fermented, marinated, pressed, etc. They use tapioca, mountain yam, konjac, bean curd, fruits, vegetables, and other vegan products that they have manipulated into amazing and varied textures, tastes, and colors.
Visions of Flavor
Kaarage
A small plate interpretation of the classic Japanese snack of bite-sized fried chicken that is lightly coated with potato or corn starch. Kaarage need not be limited to chicken, the technique can be used with fish or vegetables as well. Generally this is served with Japanese mayo and a squeeze of lemon, but this dish was served with a spicy agave aioli that left a lingering heat.
The texture is crispy and dense, but not juicy, that came from the aioli. It had a great mouthfeel and I thought I could eat a plate or two just myself.
Bean Curd Katsu
Katsu is a deep-fried chicken cutlet, that has been dipped in panko, and served with a sweet-sour brown sauce called tonkatsu. This dish emulated that with Panko bean curd, mirin, and a house-made katsu. It had the chewiness of (sort of) chicken, but stands as its own dish. It was tasty and had a great mouthfeel. Again, no need to compare this with chicken, it stands on its own as a version of katsu that is viable for a small dish or snack.
Boddy and Soul
Tempura rolls are generally sushi (sushi rice and nori seaweed) where the main ingredient, often shrimp, has been deep-fried. This interpretation is amazingly textured. The slightly seaweed flavored tempura roll is made with spicy tofu, green onion, shichimi togarashi, sesame, spicy aioli, and sweet soy among other garnishes. Such a beautiful dish to enjoy and taste.
Avocado Cucumber Nigiri
As you can see above, this is an avocado-cucumber nigiri, a creamy sushi roll that had a hint of citrus. It filled the mouth with the luscious smoothness of avocado broken by rice. Jimi made this for us, and it did not have cucumber on it. But what a treat.
Philadelphia Roll
This is a uramaki roll of smoked tofu, avocado, and vegan cream cheese. Jane felt the smoked tofu had a very distinctive taste that was great.
Uramaki was an American invention, because seaweed was viewed as foreign, someone decided to hide it inside the sushi roll, rather than flaunt it on the outside.
Secret Weapon and Missing Piece
Secret Weapon features marinated eryngii mushroom, avocado, spicy shredded tofu, pickled jalapeño, pickled pineapple, sweet shoyu, and habanero sauce. While Missing Piece contained marinated shiitake and tempura asparagus, topped with ginger shoyu tomato, pickled mango, sweet shoyu, garlic aioli, and shichimi togarashi.
Spicy Garlic Miso Ramen
The broth was a flavorful and light mix with perfectly cooked noodles. The red tofu was compressed and actually tasted a bit like salmon in texture and taste. We split it between us and everyone appreciated the dish as a nice break between rice dishes.
Vegetable Tempura
This is one dish my spouse coveted. It featured asparagus, zucchini, eggplant, pumpkin, and shoyu. The tempura was crispy outside with perfectly done vegetables inside, and not greasy at all. The sauce was not particularly remarkable, but had a good dipping flavor.
Conclusion
We even loved the sliced ginger!
Yes there were only four of us, and yes we barely left any crumbs. During the meal we kept muttering about the dishes being beautiful and the food tasting delicious. Each of us were clamoring over the others to make sure we got photos of the food. This is one of those places that I believe a meat-eater will not miss the texture of meat as the dishes are fully flavorful in themselves.
—Patty
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