- Casual
- Solo
- Date
A small, friendly Taiwanese restaurant on the edge of Yokohama Chinatown serving an everyday menu with a genuine set of plant-based choices — vegetarian mapo tofu, meat-free dumplings and vegetable dishes — and English is spoken, which is rare for the area. A full vegetarian course needs a reservation, though à-la-carte vegetarian dishes do not. As with all Chinese kitchens, confirm whether items use chicken stock, oyster sauce or egg if you are strictly vegan.
Can I eat here?
Diets our editors confirmed in person· English menu / support
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Vegetarian
私はベジタリアンで、肉と魚は食べません。
Watashi wa bejitarian de, niku to sakana wa tabemasen.
I'm vegetarian — I don't eat meat or fish.
- この料理に肉や魚のだしは入っていますか？Does this dish contain meat or fish stock?
Reserve & verify
Details
- Nearest station
- Ishikawacho Stn
- Cuisine
- Taiwanese (with vegetarian / vegan options)
- Price
- ¥¥
- English menu / support
- ✓
- Signature
- Vegetarian mapo tofu and meat-free dumplings alongside a Taiwanese menu
Banwa Rou is a small Taiwanese diner tucked behind Yokohama Chinatown's Kanteibyo temple, run by a Taiwanese couple who serve the kind of home-style dishes that don't usually come with an English menu in this neighborhood — here, one does. The lu rou fan (braised pork rice) is dished up in the salty seasoning of northern Taiwan, the style associated with Taipei, alongside water dumplings and daikon mochi.
The room seats around 28 across seven tables, with a private room for larger groups, and it has the slightly rumpled, welcoming feel of a place where the owner would rather talk you through the menu than upsell it. The vegetarian side of the kitchen is not an afterthought: a genuinely well-regarded vegetarian mapo tofu, dumplings filled with vegetables instead of pork, and a rotating handful of vegetable dishes that read as genuinely Taiwanese rather than a Western substitution. The daikon mochi — crisp outside, soft within — is worth ordering if it's on, though the kitchen skips it in the hottest months, roughly May through September, since it doesn't hold up well in summer heat.
A few practical notes. Payment is cash only — no cards, no e-money, no QR pay — so plan for that before you sit down. À la carte vegetarian dishes are fine to order on a walk-in basis, but the full vegetarian set course needs to be booked ahead (Tabelog's English page handles this). And because this is a Chinese-Taiwanese kitchen rather than a dedicated vegan restaurant, it's worth asking directly if you eat strictly plant-based — chicken stock, oyster sauce and egg can turn up in dishes that otherwise look meat-free. For everyday vegetarians, though, this remains one of the more reliable tables in Chinatown, about five minutes on foot from Ishikawacho Station.
Last verified Jul 2026
Hours and details can change — please confirm before you visit.
