If you’re looking for a new joint for your next veggie fix, look no further. Food here may not be fantastic, but its inviting décor (with lots of cheery green tones on the walls that set the mood) plus friendly service staff make dining here thoroughly pleasant. Considering that the rest of the local joints here are packed to the brim during lunchtime, Honzen is quiet and empty, although we’re not complaining. Apart from a decent selection of à la carte items like pastas, burgers and other local rice favorites like rendang with rice, there are daily set meals where $28 gets you two soups of the day, two main dishes, a choice of free flowing brown or white rice, and two desserts of the day—quite a steal. Value for money aside though, nothing we tried was particularly memorable. Our vegetable soup tasted like a scaled down minestrone, although our main of sambal petai certainly got us going with its zesty chili base and generous serving of petai. Our other main of fried mustard leaf with button mushroom was rather bland though (and we know healthy veggie fare doesn’t have to be that way—just head to Trust Organic Health in Joo Chiat for evidence.) Thankfully, we ordered two additional appetizers which somewhat saved our day. The Jade Roll ($3.90) was a surprisingly tasty mix of shallots, carrots and mock meat deep fried like the local ngoh hiang dish, and the Purple Yam Roll ($3.90) was an apt roundup to our meal, providing just that nice tinge of sweetness which we were looking for after the supremely bland ice jelly dessert that came with our set. Still, we might pop by again if we’re in the area and looking for a quiet spot, as this is still one of the most affordable vegetarian cafés in town.
