Hey everyone! Joan here.

I know it has been a while, but I’m back in the blogging world. So much has changed for me since my last blog post, hence why I have not written. To make it short, I moved out of Santa Monica (not too far, still on the Westside,) became a vegetarian, and have not been eating a lot of ramen. My dietary decisions was based solely on having a healthier lifestyle but it did not necessarily mean that ramen would be completely out of the picture!

Very few places I have been to have great vegetarian ramen, and I have yet to find a vegan one! However, I found a vegan spot two weeks ago during a road trip to San Francisco.

After an entire day of San Francisco-ing, (Andytown Coffee, Haight Ashbury, Painted Ladies, Mrs. Doubtfire House, Palace of the Arts, Golden Gate Bridge, Lombard Street) we stumbled upon Shizen Vegan Sushi Bar & Izakaya in the Mission District. Although we originally planned on trying the sushi, I could not resist when I saw ramen on the menu.

 Spicy Garlic Miso Ramen

 Grilled mushroom

 Bean curd “chashu”

We both ordered the Spicy Garlic Miso Ramen and it was actually pretty good. The broth was made of vegetables, mushrooms and seasonings, and the toppings were a bean curd chashu, grilled mushrooms and tempura mushrooms, green onions, nori and bamboo (which I asked to leave out.) The chashu was interesting, it had a smoky pork flavor to it, but you knew it was not real pork. I think it could have done without it because I never was a fan of vegetables trying to taste like meat. But I really loved the tempura mushrooms. The noodles were descent, and the broth was very flavorful. We also ordered a tomato sushi just to try it, and it tripped me out how it looked just like tuna. However, it didn’t taste a thing like tuna and it kept falling apart. I probably wouldn’t order that again because I felt it didn’t have anything special about the way it tasted. Overall, I think I would come here again if I wanted ramen in San Francisco.

Tuna? Nope. This is actually a tomato sushi!

We had an awesome time on our road trip to San Francisco. If I could write a blog post about it, I would. To sum it up, we travelled gypsy style, with camping gear in the car, not knowing where we were going to stay each night. But we figured it out every time, and had an amazing journey up and down California.

Thanks for reading,

Joan

Restaurant Information
Shizen Vegan Sushi Bar & Izakaya
370 14th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

We easily found parking right in front of the restaurant and after 6 pm, it’s free.