Joinus Restaurant Located in the Tumon Sands Plaza

Ordering vegan food from a Japanese restaurant can be somewhat of a challenge, being that most of their items contain fish products.  However, with a few tweaks here and there, you're able to whip out a satisfactory meal without losing the indulgence of Japanese cuisine.

The Joinus Restaurant located in Tumon Sands Plaza, includes a sushi bar, full service kitchen, and teppanyaki service, allowing a vegan to order several dishes to his or her specifications.  To start, they offer a vegetable salad and regular salad with tomatoes, garbanzo beans, and cucumbers with a yummy Japanese dressing.  Although they may offer you the option of a "complete set" meal, I would advise against this since most of the items included in the set (besides the salad and rice) are not vegan.  However two vegan friendly appetizers are available: edamame and the steamed tofu.  When you order the steamed tofu be sure to tell the waiter that you want it with no fish toppings or fish sauce.  Feel free to request other toppings such as dried seaweed and sesame seeds.

For entrees, you can have sushi and vegetable teppanyaki.  The sushi bar allows you to order any type of vegetable sushi you can think of, from avocado, cucumber, mixed vegetables, to tofu vegetable sushi.  You can order the sushi as either cut rolls or hand-rolled sushi. 

The vegetable teppanyaki is very delicious and my recommendation as a main entree.  It includes bean sprouts, spinach, eggplant, kaboucha squash, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, bell peppers, and tofu.  To order this, make sure you specify no meat sauce, fish sauce, and butter.  If you want more flavor besides the use of sesame oil, salt, and pepper, go ahead and request it with soy sauce, although they usually give you finadene.

While Joinus Restaurant provides a very comfortable atmosphere, be sure to explain your order thoroughly.  Makes sure the waiter writes down your order specifications and be prepared for some weird looks and a lot of repeating of your order.  Most of the workers here do not know what a vegan/vegetarian is, and pretty much every time I eat there, the hostess always says "you really only eat vegetables?"  Other than the subtle alienation, Joinus Restaurant provides you with a full complete vegan meal that leaves you walking out quite satisfied.  

by Beverly Shieh