Bejiroka: Meal probably packed with all sorts of nutrients

Area:  about 200m west of Kokusai Center station 国際センター駅, or a 1 min walk from exit 10 of Unimall ユニーモール
Restaurant:  Bejiroka ベジロカ
Map and Info:  http://tabelog.com/aichi/A2301/A230101/23051390/dtlmap/?lid=tocoupon2

Hours:  Lunch 10am-2pm, Sun-Thurs open until 12pm, Fri + Sat + holidays open until 2am




This restaurant seems to be popular among the ladies, probably due to the vegetable theme.  Lunch is a choice of a pasta or a vegetable curry set.  On weekends there is also some kind of spicey stew, but that was all sold out by the time I got there (I arrived at 1:30pm, LO is 2pm).   With the pasta lunch (¥1320) you get a choice of a veggie tapas, or a dessert.  I went for the former.    The potato salad was a bit different in that it used minimal mayonnaise, and was served with croutons and worcestershire sauce.  It all went very well together especially with the smokiness from bits of bacon mixed throughout.  The bean salad was the only protein from this meal.    It was a mixture of chick peas, kidney beans and a dull green, circular bean (which I'm not sure but may be a green mung bean).  The mild mustard and olive oil dressing matched well.  The third tapas was a mushroom sauté salad with again, an olive oil flavor but this time, pepper was the accent.

What I probably enjoyed the most was the salad bar.  Well, it's more like a veggie dip bar.  You fill up a glass with your choice of veggies and then you can try 2 dips and an herbed salt on one plate.  One dip was a Japanese style while the other was a creamy veggie purée.  The fun part was that it was the first time that I've seen a lot of these veggies.  For example, ice lettuce (looked as if it were covered with dew and was naturally slightly salty).  Urui was like a leek, but more mild in flavor.  Salad celery was pink and reminded me more of a radish.  Nabana was similar to a mustard green.  

Today's pasta was tomato miso with plenty of veggies. The miso flavor was mild but gave the tomato sauce a certain creaminess.  Nothing really stood out in this dish except for the fact that it was packed with vegetables, unlike the pasta normally served in Japan which often is scarce in toppings.