Shizenya

I was super excited to go to Shizenya because they offer brown rice with all their menu items, use organic greens and claims to use no additives/msg in their food….in other words, everything here is made wholesome and fresh. I really appreciated that they did that here because restaurants that offer brown rice is hard to find as is and one that offers organic greens makes it all the better

Shizenya interior

For some reason I thought that the restaurant would be quite spacious on the inside but gosh was I wrong. There weren’t many tables and there was a line all the way up to the door from the cash register. I didn’t mind waiting for a spot though because I knew it would be worth the wait.

I couldn’t decide what to get at Shizenya because I wanted to try absolutely everything! They offered cones with soy paper wraps, quinoa sushi, entrees with brown rice with no extra cost and they even offered brown rice noodles! Now this is my kind of Japanese restaurant! Anyways, after browsing through the menu for a good 15 minutes I ended up picking the Spinach curry combo ($7.95) because I rarely see curry on the menu at Japanese restaurants, it was spinach based and it was vegan…I was sold. Plus, it came with brown rice for NO extra cost!

Salad

★★★

The salad that came with the combo was a nice surprise because it had cucumbers, carrots and bell peppers on top of the typical salad greens. The salad also had a sesame dressing instead of the typical ginger-soy one

Green curry

★★★

I absolutely loved that the curry came with brown rice because it’s something that isn’t easy to find. I didn’t really think much of the gomae salad on the side because there wasn’t much to it. However, I did find that the sesame dressing on it was not as heavy in sesame flavor as ones I’ve had in the past though. Since curry has a strong distinct flavor, the flavor of the spinach wasn’t very pronounced. Although the curry powder flavor came through, it wasn’t spicy at all and the chickpeas were a nice protein addition. I’d have this dish again in a heartbeat but it could of used a little more spice for my taste.