Veggie Cafe Mazina — Restaurant in Fujinomiya

It was a pleasure to dine at this true farm to table restaurant that offers lunch specials, tea time sandwiches and desserts. Thanks to the English-speaking staff, we were able to order two of the cafe's daily lunch special sets of veggie hot-pot to be made vegan and without gluten. The chefs were kind in prepping our special requests even though it was past the lunch hour.

The dishes were beautifully presented and amazingly delicious. The chefs' sensibility to lightly season the broth and dipping sauce (specially made without soy sauce which had gluten) allowed the natural sweetness of the veggies to be tasted. All of the soy products from soy milk, tofu, soy mayonnaise and soy soft serve ice cream were handmade. Plus all of the produce they used was grown and harvested from their Nagano farm, boasting 300 crops.

We were pleasantly surprised by the calibre of service, food, presentation and ambiance of this unassuming cafe. The veggie hot pots we had were the best vegan meals we've...

I love meat but these vegan/vegetarian sandwiches were heavenly. What sorcery is this? We came on a Tuesday and it was packed, especially now that we are in Fuji mountain climbing season and many tourists are here now (and also two big restaurants nearby: Tully's and the Brewery have closed their doors) so prepare to possibly wait for 1/2 an hour for your meal to come. There is a beautiful shrine park across the street and the views were relaxing.

The food was so delicious we forgave the wait. They have a cute little shop inside with all kinds of unique and wholesome foods and crafts. The staff is wonderful, as is just about always in Japan. The male staff had excellent English, not sure about the rest of the staff, as my husband spoke native Japanese to them.

There was also a delicious looking special of the day that looked magnificent, we will have to come back one day. I'm not crazy about the soy soft-serve, I just adore regular...

As a vegan, finding food in this area was almost impossible. I found this place with the app happy cow and went for a lunch. Had a fig curry that comes with a salad and a drink in a beautiful presentation for 1200 yen which is a reasonable price, and tasted very nice and special (did not expect a sweet curry... Maybe a tiny bit too sweet for my taste but very good overall).

It is a very cozy place, spacious, foreigners-friendly, that also sells various items that look of high quality and with a great atmosphere overall.

A vegetarian café, which is indeed rare here, however most dishes contain milk/eggs, including their famous soy soft serve dessert unfortunately. I would love to see more vegan stuff, maybe like an option for soy cheese in the sandwiches and a fully soy-milk dessert. Still, it deserves 5/5 and I wish them the...