阿倍野 | Oh! Saka!

Aarti’s Kobe-Based Indian Restaurant Chain アールティ天王寺

I live in the Tennoji area, where I am lucky enough to have this great Indian food restaurant. Apparently a chain since there are store all over the Kansai region. However, the original is in Kobe, thus the name.

This restaurant though no vegan is very vegan and vegetarian friendly. One of the staff’s English is quite good but he is not always been there every time I have gone. Fortunately I am essentially fluent in Japanese. Vegetarians have no worries as like most Indian restaurants in Canada, USA, and Britain have dahl (lentils, or beans) curries as well as vegetable curries. These curries are always are part of the set menu choices as well! (a big plus because it is not always the case in Japan).For vegans you must explain that you want no milk or butter in your naan, and curries. This can be done in English if the English speaker is there. The chef (an kind Indian man) also speaks some English.

The main thing here is there are a ton of vegetarian options that can be made vegan by asking for oil instead of butter, and no butter in the naan. Usually either of those two things is impossible or only the later (the naan) is in most Indian food places in Japan.

Aarti’s I give you a 4/5 for vegan-friendly(only because it is a little expensive).

Access: Kintetsu Osaka Abenobashi St. Follow signs to to the Lucias Building 1F basement. Tennoji JR or Subway is more complicated but just follow signs to Kintetsu Lines, then signs to Lucias Building.

For Valentine’s Day I used their coupon called ahead explained I wanted to use the coupon and wanted our food to all be Vegan. So they traded out the tandoori meat with a tandoori seitan like thing and one extra samosa! This is unheard of food service in Japan.

Photos from that AMAZING meal