Underrated: Koji

As vegetarians who like to go out, my wife & I have noticed that some unlikely restaurants in Portland offer a decent variety of vegetarian choices. I will confess that I suffer occasional bouts of LookOtherWayism, a non-fatal malady related to notable disinterest in the ingredients in restaurant soup broths, beans, casseroles and so forth. A fine example of this malady in practice occurs when we eat at Koji. For sushi, I like getting kappa maki, inari, tamago and sometimes the vegetable rolls. But I also like tsukimi udon and vegetable ramen. Which is to say, I won't order anything that obviously has meat in it, but we all know that broth ain't vegan. My wife eats seafood, so she has most of the menu to choose from, but still often gets the salmon donburi. I also love the tofu steaks--only available some locations--the korokke (Japanesification of the word and dish croquettes), agedashi tofu and of course, edamame. Downtown location seems to have the nicest staff, but Macadam has the bigger menu.