Bah! It was bound to happen, it’s been a while since I was given incorrect information at a restaurant but sure enough it’s come to pass. Unfortunately in my last post on Atch-Kotch I raved about my favorite vegan items, including their Miso Soup… however thanks to some investigative reporting by VeganInLA I’ve since been informed that the miso is indeed made with fish broth. DISGUSTING!
What the hell restaurant people… listen up:
FISH JUICE IS NOT VEGAN- IT DOES NOT COME FROM A VEGETABLE!
My sincere apologies if you’ve had this soup due to my post, I’m terribly sorry and was just passing along to you what I had been told. I’m pretty pissed about this myself as I’ve been enjoying this soup for a long time, having been specifically told it was vegan. From what I understand the tofu dish that my post spotlighted is still actually vegan and safe for you to eat (as are a lot of the other items there). Just please, ask first. As well intentioned as I am about this stuff, you see I don’t always get it right, especially when I’m not told the truth.
Damn, when things like this happen I get very frustrated about all restaurants. No matter how nice or knowledgeable a restaurant staff is (especially at places that aren’t exclusively vegetarian/vegan), no one is ever going to take your dietary requirements & issues as seriously as you are when cooking your own food. It’s always a risk when eating out and not having full control over how your food is prepared, and it’s always a serious bummer when you learn your trust has been violated and you’ve been fed something revolting. I’m updating my original post to reflect this info… sorry again. I still encourage you to eat at Atch-Kotch (I still love this place!) especially the Spicy Garlic Tofu, but I know that the next time I go there I will be grilling them intently on each item before it goes in my mouth.
grrrr…i hate it when they lie to us (intentionally or unintentionally) this happened to me recently as well…i still feel dirty :( thanks for the update!
details? How do you know this? I assume you know miso soup is generally made with dashi and dashi usually (but not always) has bonito flakes as an ingredient which are from fish.
How do I know? I just explained in the post that someone asked and was told it is made with fish. I was previously told it was vegan and now found out it isn’t. Pretty straightforward.
I know that miso is often made with a fish based dashi, though it isn’t always, and I was previously told at this restaurant that this wasn’t the case. It has now been verified that it is.
Well, you didn’t say that in your post. You attributed the information to a link to someone’s twitter account with no further information.. which is why I asked ;) Anyhow, thanks for the info and thanks for the blog.
oh shit, i know how it is! i have been burned by restaurants so many times in the past….sorry this happened! do you think we can trust that their sauce and flavorings for the tofu dish are totally vegan, or might there be animal stock in the broth?
BTW i love your graphic on this post!
This blog post, and the follow-up retraction are lame. I went to Atch-Kotch with my boyfriend who speaks fluent Japanese. We didn’t even sit down, as NOTHING in there is vegan. All sauces, marinades etc. have fish stock, chicken stock, fish flakes and eggs in them. He had to explain what a vegan was, and even after that they were confused as to why somebody would go there and ask for their food to be made without key ingredients.
At the very least, everything is cooked with the same base sauces in the same pans with no kitchen separation. Why on earth would you post on something without doing any research first? I’m not just talking about shared pans here, but real animal/meat ingredients.
This is a normal Japanese restaurant, not promising to cater for vegans or vegetarians. Don’t make it into something it’s not. You should just delete the story.
I’m lame because you didn’t actually read what I wrote? I made it clear that this is not a vegetarian restaurant and focused on one specific dish, which the owner/chef himself told me is vegan, and emphasized that people should ask about ingredients before ordering anything else. When I found out that something I’d written about wasn’t vegan I did the responsible thing and posted a follow up. There are a number of vegan things that can be ordered there- sharing of pots & pans is beyond the scope of this website. You should assume that anything you eat at a restaurant that isn’t exclusively vegan will have mixed cookware. If you’re not willing to eat from a pan that hasn’t been consecrated as vegan than you have no business eating out at any restaurants whatsoever, and this blog will not satisfy your über-vegan standards.