“Vegan ramen is not popular in Japan, so it’s a very rare find,” Inoue says. “Besides, there was one time that a family member of my customers had to wait outside because she couldn’t eat meat, so I don’t want that to happen again.”

Inoue opts for a gluten base for the white noodle and kombucha as a main ingredient for the green noodle. The two noodles will be served cold along with slices of meat which are made from stems of enokitake (golden needle mushroom).

“The hardest thing in making vegan ramen is how to maintain the umami taste,” he says, adding a lot of vegan dishes lack decent flavor and that he’s used every possible way to add dimensions to his new vegan menu.

Inoue provides two types of dashi. The first is clear and uses enokitake caps boiled with shoyu, elevating the aroma with charcoal oil and served with a slice of burnt tomato and a shiitake dumpling. The second is a tofu-based tantan soup rich in flavor and with a little spice from the chili oil. To cut the grease, there is wasabi and salt mixed with dried aonori seaweed.

The mushroom don is also worth mentioning. The meat is replaced with shiitake mushrooms, tofu, and eggplant mixed together in umami shiitake sauce.

Inoue plans to serve the vegan menu for three months before dropping another new vegan menu. In the meantime, he’s preparing himself for the upcoming restaurant Sense at Park Silom serving up tsukesoba.

“Sense derives from sensu, meaning fan. Thailand is always hot so I want to serve something cold. The reason I opened at Park Silom is because I want to encourage working people,” he says with enthusiasm. Sense by No Name Noodle will be open in November.