Curry and Rice with Deep Fried Tempeh (that's finely chopped ginger on top of the curry, not parmesan cheese!)

Just a short walk from Tokyo Sky Tree Tower is the bright and modern Vegan and Organic Sasaya Café. It's one of the few full service sit down vegan restaurants we found that is open for breakfast as well as lunch. We only made it there for lunch (and dessert of course), but we're happy we did. Don't be afraid to order anything with the deep-fried tempeh...it was prepared extremely well and was not excessively oily (deep frying is not a trivial skill).

Deep-fried Crispy Tempeh Sandwich with Fresh Green Salad, Tomato Soup, and Pickled Eggplant. Notice each half-sandwich came with a different spread...one had a green pesto spread, and the other a pinkish tomato spread.

Sasaya Café has a spacious, interior seating area with high ceilings, and a cute covered outdoor patio. Lunch was delicious, and so was the dessert. We got the Dessert Sampler Plate which included vegan ice cream, a chocolate brownie, a blueberry bread pudding, and cashew cream with a signature cookie...all done very well.

They also had a mini-store at the front of the café, where various vegan food and sundry products were available for sale.

Sasaya Café is located at 1-1-10 Yokokawa, Sumida-ku, Tokyo, Japan. It is located at the edge of a beautiful park which you can partially walk through to get to/from Tokyo Sky Tree. This park has meandering walkways, a babbling brook with stepping stones, colorful flowers, a small bamboo grove, and lots of shade trees with benches. Definitely worth at least a look either before or after your meal.

For links to more restaurant reviews from our July 2014 trip, please see our post "The Vegan Community in Japan is Alive and Well!".

Thanks for reading. Peace and love to all who live.

Susan