This gem of a restaurant offers some of the healthiest meals I’ve ever encountered. They serve a full vegan menu featuring fermented foods made from local vegetables. The restaurant avoids MSG, refined sugar, and flour, and emphasises medicinal ingredients.
The place is so impressive that I visited it twice within six months—once with friends and once with family.
Left: Entrance of the restaurant Right: Menu
Even the water is natural spring water sourced from a high0vibration mountain area, which they refer to as high-vibrational water.
Natural water from the mountain—this might sound a bit out there, but I truly believe in this kind of thing!
First Visit
We all had a fermented medicinal lunch for 2000 yen. The menu varies depending on what local vegetables are available, so it was a bit different from the menu we recieved on my second visit.
The meal consisted of;
- Miso Soup: Made with a stock of Chinese medicinal herbs
- Rice: Two types, a mix of white and black rice, topped with fermented sprinkles
- Kinpira: Stir-fried with mirin and soy sauce burdock, chestnuts, oyster mushrooms with red miso sauce, pumpkin nimono, choy sum ohitashi and okara (the soy pulp konnyaku)
Main platter w/ wide variety of veggie dishes
There was also taro manjyu and ankake sauce and dessert was a sweet treat!
Left: Taro Manjyu Right: Dessert
Everything was incredibly delicious. Often, super healthy restaurant meals can be bland, but every dish was seasoned fabulously.
I’m not surprised, as fermented seasonings are naturally rich in umami flavour thanks to the fermentation process. My friend, who has gut issues, mentioned that she could feel the food being absorbed into her body more smoothly than she has experienced in a long time.
Second Visit
The second visit was slightly different. This time we all opted for the most expensive medicinal lunch, “Syogyo Mujyo“, a Japanese Buddhist saying meaning “nothing is permanent and everything is changing.”
This lunch, called “Matsu,” is priced at 3680 yen and includes an entrée, a main platter, dessert, and tea. If you choose to skip the entrée and dessert, it will be a bit cheaper.
Menu full of different options to select from
Entree
Mochi with miso soup and matcha green tea.
The mochi, containing black soybeans, was a delightful start
Main Platter
The main platter came with som many veggie dishes like:
- Nukaduke, the pickles
- Kikuimo (Jerusalem artichoke) sunomono (Japanese vinaigrette salad)
- Grilled tofu with fermented seasonin
- Carrot and green capsicum stir fried with fermented rice salt
Top Left: Nukaduke, Top Right: Kikuimo Sunomono
Bottom Left: Grilled Tofu, Bottom Right: Carrot and Green Capicum stir fry
- Clear soup made from Chinese medicinal herbs, served with a rice cracker, mizuna and nori
- Two types of rice with fermented sprinkles
Left: Clear Soup with Chinese Medicinal ingredients Right: Two types of rice mixed
- English spinach and aburaage ohitashi
- Shimeji Mushrooms goma ae
- Simmered konnyaku
- Burdock and sweet potato
- Okara , the soybean pulp mochi (one of my personal favourites!)
- Fake meat made from soybeans
- Shiroae, salad with tofu sauce
Dessert
Dessert was rice crackers, chestnuts, matcha yatsuhashi, purple potato chip, yomogi mochi and kumquat.
Tea Selection
The tea menu was extensive and impressive, featuring:
- Red pine tea
- Mulberry tea
- Moringa tea
- Horsetail tea
All the drinks are made with high-vibrational water, and the menu lists the health benefits of each. Although I had tried all of these teas before, I had never seen them all offered at a single restaurant. My husband, who usually sticks with coffee, chose that, while my parents opted for familiar, healthy options like rooibos tea and azuki tea.
Wide Variety of teas to pick from!
After the meal, all my family members felt remarkably healthy!
If you’re a health enthusiast like me or have gut issues or other health concerns, and you want to enjoy a tasty traditional Japanese meal, Ajyari is the place to go. Their meals are not only delicious but also easy to digest and quite healing.
Restaurant Ajyari
Address : 12-4 Sakaehonmachi, Ikeda, Osaka 563-0058, Japan
Website (Japanese only) : https://ajyari.wixsite.com/ajyari
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