Itadaki Zen - Vegan Japenese in King's Cross

Now the weather has thawed out a bit (although the wind is blustering hard) vegetarian colleague and I decided to head North from the City to try out some quality Japanese cuisine.

Itadaki Zen is not far from King's Cross station http://www.itadakizen.com/ and their website says
"Itadaki means ‘to take the food life’; Zen means ‘to fix, to mend’. The primary end of the Itadaki-zen cuisine is not merely an agreeable taste, but its healing qualities."

We went for the Kansei-han Tanno set at £17.00 and the Kimpab Chapche set £ 15.00 and shared it all

The Kansei-han Tanno set consisted of Kansei-han -Blended barley, millet, yellow split, peas, lentils, golden linseed, bulgar wheat, konbu seaweed, umisiba seaweed, mung beans, rice, mochi rice and black rice Ryokusaimaki - Fresh roll, cabbage leaf lightly boiled sheet enfolding Okara and vegetable filling
Seasonal vegetables with marinated peanut dressing, Marinated peanuts, Tofu with Yangyeom sauce & 3 vegetable dishes with delicate dressing or special salt seasoning and miso soup

The Kimpab Chapche set consisted of Chapche - Fried Noodles made of sweet potato starch cooked with vegetables, Kikurage (Mushrooms) and Shiitake mushrooms, Kimpab, 2 deep-fried spring rolls and Miso soup

Everything was delicately flavoured and went well together. It was nice to be able to order these set menus rather than selecting a number of dishes from a long menu. There were a number of other set menus ranging for about £12 - £28 so everyone would find something within their budget. For dessert I had a light, soft and sugar free cake, made with Kabocha (Japanese pumpkin), jujube and chestnusts; topped with tofu and vanilla cream which was served warm. It was delicious!

The staff were very friendly especially as we were very late for our reserved booking! The restaurant was quite small but there were quite a few customers for a Tuesday evening. I would definitely recommend and will be sure to return when I am in the area.

In the building I work in there is a parade of shops at the bottom. A new food place has opened up just yesterday in one of the previously vacant unit. They were giving away free lunches so unsurprisingly the queue went around the block! www.abokado.com they are a healthy food enterprise and have a few vegan options. They do soups, salads, wraps, sushi and shwraps which are like a big sushi rolls along with healthy snacks and treats. I had their udon and dumpling soup today and was quite impressed. All their vegan options are clearly marked and the staff were very helpful.

On the BBC site today they had an article about taking photos of food http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21235195 definitely one for me! I haven't ever seen somebody else take photos of food in a restaurant but I often see the results online so we are a growing breed! I'll use these tips and see if my food photography improves in future posts!

On Saturday I'm going to Brixton so will share all the delights I sample there in my next post

Until then Vegheads!

Vgirl Xx