Imagine a lasagna without the meat. Now drop the cheese and pasta too. Not much left?
Veggie Paradise, which opened in September in Tokyo's Yoyogi Uehara neighborhood, fills in the blanks with zucchini slices in place of the pasta, fermented cashew nuts that replicate cheese, and grated, dehydrated root veggies filling in for the meat.
As the restaurant name and unconventional recipe suggest, Veggie Paradise is a herbivore's heaven. Everything on the menu is vegan, eschewing all meat, fish, eggs and dairy products, as well as sugar, monosodium glutamate (MSG) and anything else artificial. It's the latest, and most inventive, of the vegan restaurants that are mushrooming across the capital.