I ate in a new veggie
restaurant in the Yoyogi Uehara neighborhood of Tokyo recently. That
should make the trip tax deductible since I am on the board of Greens restaurant (vegetarian) in San Francisco.
Greens has been a success for more than 25 years. Greens has been full nearly all its history with 180 seats recently expanded to over 200. It recently opened on Sunday nights and was full immediately. I originally found the location for the restaurant in 1980 and helped conceive the original Greens with the abbot of San Francisco Zen Center.
What
Greens did right and the Yoyogi restaurant does wrong is to use plenty
of butter, cheese, cream, sugar, rich sauces, great deserts and have a very large wine
list.
There were never any fliers, magazines or newspapers in Greens
for veggie issues nor were there any products for sale with a veggie ideology, like organic virgin olive oil.
The food at Greens has always been expensive and great. It recently got even better, changing with the times. Veggie food is expensive to prepare, because, unlike a slab of steak or fish, it can't be thrown on the grill. Everything has to be carefully cut, diced and presented. That is labor. Veggie food is labor intensive and that is expensive.