Joyheart Cafe — Restaurant in San Jose

This hidden gem is my absolute favorite restaurant in San José! Once in a while, I go to a Buddhist temple to meditate(many of which are Vietnamese here in SJ); at one particular temple they serve a free lunch after group meditation. What's noteworthy about the food served at temples is that the produce is grown by the monks, and all the food is cooked by the monks - and it is some of the best food I've ever had!

While I can't confirm this, seeing that this café connects to the temple in the back, I feel fairly confident assuming that there are some Buddhist principles that influence and guide the preparation and cooking of the dishes here.

The menu is minimalist, focusing on a few dishes rather than on offering an expensive range of items, and the times that I have been here I was absolutely delighted with how well-balanced and cooked my vegetables were; this is what I love about the style of Buddhist cooking: veggies aren't saturated with lots of heavy sauces or seasonings - instead, because vegetables are grown from scratch, there is an intimate understanding of how to cook each vegetable to bring out the best flavors, without adding a bunch of unnecessary ingredients that would stifle one's enjoyment of the natural taste of the veggies.

The service is always courteous and friendly as well, and the quiet atmosphere, despite partly being a health food shop, adds to the ambience as well.

Whenever I am in the area I make it a point to stop here; this place definitely brings a lot of joy to my lil...

My mom and I came here for their vegetarian menu since she does eat meat, chives, onion, and garlic. The place is in the back of the plaza when you first turn in off the road; I wish there were signs, but we found it by driving around, whew. There’s a good amount of parking.

The inside is half grocery store and half cafe. We walked around to check out the items then asked to get seated. I got the rainbow noodles — noodles topped with vegetarian “minced pork”, purple cabbage, carrots, egg, and cucumber. The flavor was so good! Mom for the vegetarian braised “eel” pot rice. The rice was a bit too soft and wet and the dish could have used more flavor. The braised fake eel was a mind trip! It looks pretty real and the texture is great. I’ll be back for more. The meals aren’t too pricey either at $~12 for the...

Love this vegetarian restaurant. Food is delicious, especially the tomato noodle soup, a vegetarian version of 牛肉麵. Staff are very friendly and helpful. The place is very clean and beautifully decorated with a small store of merchandise from Taiwan.

Update: I came back with my daughter. We were very happy with the food. Better yet we found that they now had a cute little tea booth inside. My daughter loved the decore and really enjoyed the Yuzu...