Japanese vegan restaurant Towzen is pushing boundaries at its third international offshoot, in Sydney, with ramen that incorporates Thai green curry and Sichuan-style flavours.
There is a heatwave on, yet I’m queueing for ramen in Sydney’s CBD. Sure, the footpath is toasting my shoes and my clothes are liquefying, but I’ve committed to sweating further over a hot bowl of broth. It’s not just me: the line stretches half an hour long. I’m outside Australia’s first outpost for Towzen, a well-established vegan ramen restaurant from Japan. Sydney’s location opened in July and has generated long-distance buzz: in the line, I meet an English tourist and Canberra visitors who’ve sought out Towzen’s steamy bowls.
Ironically, there was no queueing (or unflattering sweating) required when I visited Towzen’s original Kyoto location some years back. Maybe because it’s far from the city and requires two public transport connections (still, the trip is shorter than my ramen wait in Sydney). Towzen opened in 2004 and became known for founder Minoru Yonekawa’s soy-milk ramen. Towzen Sydney serves his signature noodle broth and it’s even better than the one I sipped in Kyoto. It’s nutty, vegetable-rich and zings with sansho pepper. Even the bitter rocket leaves add a welcoming charge of contrast. In Kyoto, my bowl was filled with gloopy, green chlorella noodles (something I ordered out of curiosity), whereas Sydney serves standard wheat strands in the Goldilocks zone: not too thick or thin, slurpable and broth-compatible.
Sydney’s Towzen sits in a 140-year-old heritage building and evokes Japan with its bonsai trees, teapot collections and soothing piano instrumentals: it’s “respite for the bustling city workers that come in for an hour or so”, says co-owner Daryl Chan. This cool and calming refuge, like the tree-lined original, offers relief for sweaty queuers like me. Also refreshing? Towzen’s chilled tofu pooled in sesame-rich dressing, cold soy pudding drizzled with caramel-like kuromitsu (Japanese black sugar) and icy drinks: everyone orders matcha-strawberry lattes, but citrus-spiked yuzu sodas, smoky hojicha brews and nutty black sesame beverages are also summer-worthy.
This is Towzen’s third international offshoot, following sites in Malaysia and Indonesia. Chan, a long-time vegetarian, believes “it’s so hard” to find plant-based Sydney restaurants outside Cabramatta and Newtown. The CBD, with its hotbed of steakhouses, is a smart place for setting up.
Our menu notably differs from Kyoto’s. “Australia’s a multicultural country,” Chan says. So there’s ramen with Thai green curry and Sichuan-style flavours. Towzen isn’t here to challenge collagen-thick bowls of porky tonkotsu or other meaty staples, but similar dedication goes into broths. Most are developed overnight, using stock-bolstering ingredients such as mushrooms, nutty pastes and tingly spices. Top-selling tantanmen highlights an oyster mushroom’s butterfly-like sprawl, salty soy “mince” on a lilypad-like disc of charred zucchini and soup punchy with chilli oil, sesame and peanut pastes. Thai green curry ramen is aptly spicy and vegetable-loaded, while mushroom shoyu ramen, drizzled with chanterelle oil, is pretty light by comparison.
It’s so light, in fact, that I fit in a whole meal afterwards: Towzen’s unadon set of rice, pickles, miso soup and vegan kabayaki-style eel made from soy-glazed bean curd and mushroom. This meat substitute reflects Japan’s vegetarian temple cuisine, which has endured for more than 1000 years. Buddhist monks offered such mock meats to welcome carnivores. Towzen’s best take on this is the “karaage”, where ginger-charged bites of crunchy lion’s mane mushrooms are served in place of fried chicken. A nearby table agrees, pronouncing it “amazing”, as do Google reviews. Some online commenters, though, have flagged the noodle bowls as expensive. Towzen isn’t cheap, sure; but its $30-ish vegan broths are in the same price zone as Mensho, another Japanese ramen brand attracting queues in the CBD.
The best line-avoiding strategy, BTW, involves dropping by for weekday lunch or arriving the second Towzen opens for dinner. Queueing has its upsides: I bump into the Canberra visitors I met in the line afterwards. They’d been to Towzen’s Malaysian location, but couldn’t remember it. In Sydney, they loved the Thai green curry and spicy mala bowls. Perhaps sweating for ramen is worth it after all.
Three other vegan eateries to try
By day, this charming cafe is known for lunch plates of Japanese curry and tempura; at night, it shifts into a vegetable sushi bar (try blow-torched eggplant with miso). Tea-based drinks that rule brunch (strawberry matcha, hojicha) become boozy cocktails; you can order beer, sake and yuzu lemonade, too.
524A King St, Newtown, comecofoods.com.au
Not enough time or budget to commit to Yellow’s ace vegan tasting menu? Try the three-course weekend lunch (it might feature summery tiramisu with Ducasse bananas) or happy hour sessions when smoked carrot or grilled mushroom skewers and sandwiches are available.
57 Macleay St, Potts Point, yellowsydney.com.au
An Nhien
You’ll see diners slurping noodle broths and savouring stir-fries at this popular vegetarian eatery. It specialises in plant-based versions of Asian staples, such as Hainan chicken rice, Vietnamese canh chua (sweet and sour soup) and much more.
21/180 Railway Parade, Cabramatta, facebook.com/AnNhienVegetarian
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