Cha-Ya Berkeley — Restaurant in Berkeley

Fully Vegan Japanese restaurant, cash or Venmo only! (5/5 green stars) Cha-ya has been around for decades and it’s still a good choice for tasty, vegan Japanese food. Yes, it’s actually a fully vegan restaurant even though it’s more widely known as “merely” vegetarian. If you search for vegan Japanese restaurants in Berkeley, the limelight may be stolen by Tane Vegan Izakaya, also on Shattuck Ave. But Cha-ya is well worth a visit for lovers of Japanese food and/or vegans and vegetarians. It’s not as hip or stylish as Tane (honestly, Cha-ya could do with a bit of a makeover) but they do the best version of several Japanese dishes that I’ve had. From the website: “no product derived from animals of any kind are ever used” (no meat, dairy, fish, gelatin, etc.). Definitely considering having the agadashi tofu and goma ae to share (or have all on your own). Then, one of my favorites is the Taku-Sui which is described as Pot stickers, tofu, zucchini, nappa cabbage, snap peas, asparagus , broccoli, cauliflower, silver noodles, and mushrooms in a light broth and served with a ponzu citrus sauce. This dish has inspired me to make something similar at home, quite often. The Cha-ya nabe is similar but with delicious fresh ingredients like kabocha squash and spinach instead of the potstickers. Another favorite, if you’re in the mood for lots of salty miso, is the Dengaku: Broiled eggplant tofu, and portobello mushroom with miso-paste glaze. There’s a second branch in The Mission district in SF and remember that this Berkeley branch is Cash or Venmo ONLY!

I’m also giving Cha-ya 5/5 Green Stars for social and environmental impact because Cha-ya is a completely vegan restaurant. Adopting a plant-based diet is the top thing you can do to mitigate climate change, deforestation, animal cruelty, and food scarcity. They could do a better job at providing information on ingredient sourcing, however (e.g., is any pesticide-free or organic?) Please join in and include a Green Stars rating with your...

I went to Cha-Ya tonight and was very excited to find a place that has vegan and vegetarian food. Looking at the menu guessed there will be sesame seed in some of the food they make Asked our server before ordering if they could keep an eye on the ingredients and watch out for any sesame seeds or sesame oil as I am deathly allergic to it. Our waitress assured us that there will be no sesame seeds/oil in any of our food since we were all sharing...

3 out of 4 of our food came first and when finally my food came in to the table we were all done with our food and I found so many seeds in the food :-|

When brought to the waitress attention she acted very annoyed and careless and then let us know that there is no way they could separate the seed from the food and that probably there are seeds left on the cutting board... I am very disappointed and upset for the fact that they could've let us know from the beginning. so I could decide about staying or leaving before ordering so then l wouldn't have to deal with my allergies and having to go to ER ( apparently the food we also shared had sesame seeds in it ) The service was below average and the waitress was forgetful... we ordered extra ginger and we never received it and we waited for the bill for over 20 mins Very disappointed- won't come back to this place...

Cash only. Their menu is nice, the selections seemed promising. I ordered a Summer Veggie Roll. It wasn't bad but didn't really have any flavor. There was soy sauce on the table, but I'm not a big fan (I tried it any way.. was mediocre as expected).

Aside: I was a bit concerned that the main entrance is chained and padlocked from the outside. It has a fire code label that reads "This door must remain unlocked when building is occupied." There wasn't even a courtesy sign saying "please use other door". This is clearly illegal; and especially concerning is because there were ~30 patrons in that side of the restaurant whose only obvious exit was through a narrow doorway in the separating wall, past the open kitchen and out the other door. If there were ever a fire in the kitchen it would...