Roku - 広島市
Roku
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What an incredible spot. The owner was so friendly and accommodating, asking questions to ensure everything he was using was ok! Cannot recommend enough. If you’re in Hiroshima GO!!#Veganuary
First off, this place IS on the 4th floor of Okonomimura. The signs at ground floor don't list it but it is up there! Take the lift up and go round the corner, the sign is in English and Japanese so it's easy to find. Our food here was great and it was really nice to get a proper Okonomiyaki bar experience. The owner spoke enough English that I would be confident you could order a vegan meal in English. We speak some japanese and mostly ordered in Japanese on our trip. There were a few ingredients that the owner double-checked with us that was appreciated. Additionally, he used seperate tools for our meal compared to the meat and cooked them at other ends of the grill. If you're very strict about cross contamination then be aware everything is cooked on one big teppanyaki grill. I personally didn't mind this as our food was still seperate but just a heads up if this will bother you. Personally, I am vegetarian so my meal had cheese and egg. Flavour was great and I really enjoyed it. My partner is vegan and had an appropriate version, she also enjoyed hers.
First, the amount of spring onions YES. When you visit Roku just tell the owner you’re vegan and they will sort you out. I got okonomiyaki with spring onions and mochi. Deffo recommend mochi for vegans! It’s yummy and has a great texture. Since I speak Japanese I chatted with the owner about what else could be added since we realized the kimchi he had has fish in it. I mentioned these days vegan soy cheese can be food easily in many supermarkets now so hopefully he will be adding soy cheese to the menu someday. If you visit and speak Japanese please tell him too!
Finally a veggie okinomiyaki! Waiting was long and the food service lasted an hour, so ready to wait. But the cook used a special vegetarian dough and made me adapt the toppings. If you want to avoid cross-contamination (see below) just ask that it be served on a dish instead of grill. He used separate spatulas for the Veggie.
Taste-wise, this was my personal favorite of the three vegan okonomiyaki we tried in Hiroshima. Filling, perfectly balanced flavors. The only thing I didn’t like was the unfair pricing— there’s nothing already vegan on the menu, so they suggested we order something minus 2 ingredients and adding 3. Fine, but at the end they charged us full price for the meat-free okonomiyaki PLUS three toppings. Seems unfair to charge us full price for an okonomiyaki without meat, but welcome to Japan. #Veganuary
