Everybody's Doing It
Tei An rejiggers menu to satisfy vegetarian and gluten-free diners
- Tei An responded for customer requests for more vegetarian and gluten-freeitems.Photo courtesy of Tei An
- Chef Teiichi "Teach" Sakurai hops on the vegetarian/gluten-free bandwagon.Photo courtesy of Tei An
- New Tei An menu groups vegetarian dishes into one easy list.Photo courtesy of Tei An
Although known for soba noodles and impeccable fish, Tei An, the critically revered Asian restaurant in One Arts Plaza, has executed a menu shift that emphasizes its vegetarian and gluten-free items.
The new Syojin (or lunch) menu features a page called "vegetables." It compiles every veggie dish that chef-owner Teiichi "Teach" Sakurai offers, including edamame, white seaweed salad, purple potatoes, enoki mushrooms, asparagus, baby spinach and fried shishito peppers.
Following the vegetable dishes is a trio of tofu appetizers: soba agedashi tofu, stuffed fried tofu and housemade soba tofu. Gluten-free dishes are marked with a small gluten-free box. Vegetarian dishes have a small leaf.
A separate page of the menu lists Tei An's trademark noodle dishes, ramen, and fish and meat items.
Manager Ryoko Nakazawa says the new menu was introduced last week in response to customer requests.
"People were asking for vegetarian and gluten-free dishes," she says. "Most of these dishes were already on the menu, but they weren't grouped in a way that was easy to see. This makes them easier to find."
Although some dishes might seem like a vegetarian shoo-in, such as tempura vegetables, they come with a dipping sauce that contains fish broth.
"We use fish sauce in a lot of things," Nakazawa says. "If someone wants vegetarian, we just recommend they get it with salt."
Until recently, even the tempura batter contained animal product — namely, egg. But Tei An has recently changed the formula so that the tempura is now egg-free, which makes it not only vegetarian, but also vegan.