I had never been to Cha-Ya, the much-vaunted vegan Japanese restaurant in North Berkeley. But this week, in a valiant effort to put as much pickled burdock in my mouth as possible, I tried not only the Berkeley Cha-Ya, but the new San Francisco outpost, too. The things I do for you.
Regulars to the Berkeley restaurant should chime in, because I fear that my friend Shree and I took a misstep in ordering. I'd like to know what we did wrong, because the reality just did not live up to the hype. (And, that's right, no photos. Bad blogger! Blame the broken camera -- and check out Rae's lovely photos.)
As we expected, we waited a loooong time for a table. The Berkeley Cha-Ya is notorious for the long wait. It was a nice evening, and it gave us plenty of time to look over the menu, which we did not do, because we were busy catching up. The space is very small, and, as I said, very popular. We probably waited about 40 minutes (and, at the end of our meal, were shooed out to make way for others patiently waiting).
The menu is a little confusing. It's amazing how many permutations of vegetables, rice, and noodles there can be. We started with haru maki ($6) -- vegetarian (natch) spring rolls, lightly fried. They had asparagus, shiitake, carrots, beans, tofu, and silver noodles, all wrapped up nice and tight in a lightly fried package. Slightly greasy, served with a sweet dipping sauce. The vegetables seemed too soft -- I like my vegetables to bite back a little, you know, and these just gave in rather easily. Put up a fight, dammit.
Shree then had the taku-sui ($7.75), a big bowl of pot stickers and vegetables in broth. This was the big disappointment. It fell prey to the vegetarian stereotype (to which I generally do not subscribe): bland, cabbagey, boring. The potstickers tasted like they came from Trader Joe's, which I highly doubt, but still.