Wow... really good food and quality. Going again here for sure
Will Elsin
Incredible place and all 100% vegan! Amazing flavorful food. I thought it was real meat at first but it's all vegan and tastes amazing. Totally incredible and super affordable.
Cyn why
After just coming back from a Taiwan trip to visit relatives, this place just took me back for a meal!! Absolutely wonderful textures and flavorful seasoning. Highly recommend. The little market attached to the restaurant is super cute and sells authentic Taiwanese teas, snacks, and other goodies!
Karen Fann
Best place for Taiwanese snacks, teas, and frozen foods with organic, preservative-free, environmentally conscious direction!! Good selection, really friendly helpful staff, and reasonable prices!
Alisa B.
A cute and tiny Chinese grocery store that has various organic goods that I have never seen before! Lots of different snacks, frozen foods, dried goods, and more. They have fancy teas and organic soy sauces, which I thought was very unique! This grocery store is connected to Joy Heart Cafe, which has vegan and vegetarian bentos. A very wholesome and cute store to check out in San Jose!
Joyce L.
There used to be a Heartland in Fremont, but I was happy to find one up the street from my office in San Jose. This place has two parts - a small restaurant and a mini market. They specialize in vegetarian goods. They offer fun health(ier) snacks, dried pantry items, spices, herbs, oils, vinegars & elixers, personal care as well as some eco products. Their freezer is stocked with dumplings, sticky rice "tamales" mock meats, veggies, soup bases and much more. Everything is vegan or vegetarian and for the most part organic and certified with many other ISO marks. If you are vegan, be sure to double check with the worker to make sure the product is fully vegan before purchasing.The employees here are friendly and helpful. I've always been able to find what I'm looking for here. Please bear in mind that since this is a specialty shop, the prices everyday items are a smidge higher than what you would find in a regular Asian market. BUT, you'll be able to find some pretty amazing things here that the Asian market might not carry. If you're on a budget, only purchase the specialty items here. They frequently bring in new things so it's always fun popping in to see what's new to try. I recently bought some (vegan) chocolate almonds which I thought would just be your regular dark chocolate covered almonds but boy was I surprised! The almonds had a thin cookie/wafer-like coating on it, then dusted in cocoa powder. It was not overly sweet, just a touch of bitter and had a satisfying crunch. Priced at $7.50 per pouch, it was a bit expensive but I had never had anything like that before, so it was worth it. It's for amazing finds like that which keep me coming back!If you are vegan and miss eating wafer cookies (like Quadrines and Loacker), Li Zen brand makes two really tasty varieties: Salted Cashew and Herb, and Chocolate. Both are very mild in flavor and just enough to satisfy that craving and you won't feel gross from any kind of sugar rush.The restaurant side is super quaint and offers a nice variety of Taiwanese comfort favorites. Most of it is vegan but some dishes may contain egg so be sure to clarify with the server. I recommend the Braised Noodle Soup but pretty much anything on the menu is amazing!In regards to COVID, I feel very safe shopping here. They only 3 visitors inside at a time (or at least the last time I was there, this may change of course). They require all customers to wear masks and use hand sanitizer before entering. In an effort to reduce waste, they welcome you to use their basket to bring your items to your car and return the it outside their store. There is an acrylic barrier between shopper and cashier when you check out and they offer contactless payment as well. Solid COVID adaptation if you ask me! I noticed most shoppers also wear gloves inside the store, so that helped me feel more normal since I also am a glove wearer!Love this place!
Tien Hsu
(Translated by Google) Delicious food and good service! Tasty vegetarian food with flavor of home. Wonderful service and cozy decor.
Michelle N.
I didn't expect such a cute place to be located in this plaza. Joyheart Cafe is a Taiwanese vegetarian/vegan restaurant that also houses a specialty grocery store. The interior is quiet and very inviting. They even have some little booths with power outlets, so I suppose some people come here to work? I've tried a few things here and I enjoyed most of them. The only item I haven't enjoyed so far is the braised noodle soup. The broth is too oily for my tastes and the noodles themselves weren't that great. I love the meal sets. Good amount of food for reasonable prices. I wish they stocked their desserts more often so I could try them! I think Joyheart Cafe is well worth a visit if you're in the area. It's a lovely spot that's quiet, inviting, and serves good food. The service is also friendly. It's so cozy here that it feels like I'm just eating at someone's home.
Ron K.
I've been here a couple of times and it's ok but not my favorite places to come to eat vegan Taiwanese dishes. It's located adjacent to a market that sells specialty vegetarian products from Asia. The market is actually very cool as they have very interesting items I've never seen before and I actually did a little shopping to try out some different cooking oils I had never seen before. The cafe itself is pretty small but it's never been very crowded so there is never a wait. I liked the little booth tables they have set up, it's simple but clean. You basically sit down and they come over and take your order and then after you are done you pay at the register. The menu has is quite unique and I have never seen this type of menu before ever. Even the noodle soup they serve here is very different than the ramen you get elsewhere. The menu is all vegetarian but most of the dishes are not vegan unless you specifically ask for it that way. It says on the menu vegan option available on the dishes that can be made this way. More on that later. The first time I came here I tried the braised noodle soup. It comes with an option of vegan noodles without egg, mushrooms, daikon, tomatoes, bean curd and braised tofu a small amount of bok choy and a vegetarian nugget. The broth it comes with is very unique and I would say that it herbal in flavor and strong in different flavors. To me the broth tastes a bit medicinal like it would be used good for you to heal yourself. I like the taste but it may not be for everyone. The mushroom is also very strong like it was reconstituted from it's dried form. The daikon was very flavorful and absorbed the broth really well. Not sure what the veggie nugget was made with but I was told it was vegan. Noodles were ok not like fresh cut noodles would taste like but they were good. Overall I would recommend trying this especially if you want a different take on noodle soup. The second time I came here I asked the waitress what she recommended as I wanted to try something different than before. I was leaning to get the tofu curry dish as it had different veggies, potato and pumpkin. The lady seemed to recommend the vegetarian eel rice dish. I'm open to try new things so I got the dish but told her to make it vegan not vegetarian. Now I don't know if all my questions threw her off or there was a language barrier but she definitely understood the term vegan. Anyway when the dish came I went ahead and started eating the dish. My first bite tasted really fishy. Now I don't mind eating seaweed or nori and I actually love some taste like that but I absolutely hate fish sauce even if I wasn't going to eat vegetarian. I just hate the taste. This tasted very fishy. Obviously they were going for an eel taste but it was overkill. The whole bottom of the eel was on seaweed and the top had seaweed strips. Also the texture of the eel was not great. It tasted spongy to me and the sauce was really sweet. It came with string beans which were great and I even liked the mushrooms that were on the side. Then I ate what i thought was just a yellow spiralized Asian vegetable. Not knowing a lot of Asian veggies anyway I just assumed it was something new to me. It tasted actually really bland like it had really know real taste. I was like half through my meal when the lady asked if everything was ok. I asked her about what the noodles were to be informed what I was eating. Turns out it was egg that was made in noodles. Basically I said I ordered the vegan version and why did they give me the egg. She then talked to the lady who took my order and they talked in Taiwanese or whatever and she kind of said oh I forgot. Then they asked if they should remake the dish and I said I was already half done and I basically didn't like the dish anyway. What bothered me the most is I thought I would be given at least a discount as the dish was like $16 but they didn't seem to think making such a
Vy L.
Nice vegetarian place that also sell quality vegetarian products from Asia ( mostly from Taiwan). Very clean restaurant. Friendly staffs. Delicious Asian vegetarian foods.
Oh yum! Vegans/Vegetarians, please take a detour and stop here for lunch or dinner. This place is DELICIOUS! My sister, boyfriend and I came here to try some yummy food. My sister, who's vegan, recommended this place after looking up vegan-friendly places in the area. I'll be honest, I was a little surprised when we first pulled up here - it's located in the middle of a bunch of businesses, and there isn't any other food places super close by. My fears were soon put to rest! The staff was super friendly and seated us quickly, and we were given menus to look at. Almost everything except for the Unagi can be made vegan, and the only reason the unagi can't is because it contains egg whites. We each decided to get something different - I got the unagi, my sister got the vegan minced pork with rice, and my boyfriend got the vegan braised noodle soup. We were blown away! If you ordered the "set" like we did, you got this beautifully plated entree with sesame mochi, fruit, and pickled veggies on the side. The beautiful wood trays were basically begging to be instagrammed, and I definitely indulged. Vegetarian Eel Rice (vegetarian only due to egg whites) I LOVED this dish. As a self-proclaimed carnivore (jk!), I'm always pretty skeptical of meat substitutes. This unagi changed all of that. The flavoring was on point, and the texture and taste was great. If I closed my eyes and someone gave me this without telling me it was "fake" unagi, I would have assumed someone gave me a nicely grilled piece of salmon. The texture flaked in my mouth the way a perfectly cooked salmon would. The eel teriyaki sauce definitely made it taste more like unagi though! My only complaint is that I wish I ordered double because I was still hungry. It came with some mushrooms and yummy egg strips on the side as well. Minced Pork with Rice (Vegan or Vegetarian) This was also really yummy! This is probably the most "basic" of the menu, as they used a mix of tofu and vegan ham to recreate the "minced pork" over rice. Although it was good, I would say that this doesn't really mimic the feeling of taiwanese Lu Rou Fan 滷肉饭, as it doesn't quite give you the heavy comforting feeling that the meat version does. Braised Noodle Soup (Vegan or Vegetarian) This was another breakout star! This is very similar to the Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup, and so, so delicous! The broth is less beefy (obviously), and more tomato-based, but it was still a very similar flavor with the soy and star anise. This soup is also a massive portion, and has delicious noodles to soak it all up. I would definitely come here again! I wish JoyHeart sold their unagi substitute because I would LOVE to be able to eat this at home. After eating in, definitely also stop by the market to peruse some of the goodies they sell. A lot of it is vegan/vegetarian/gluten-free friendly! My sister was able to find Vegan Danish Butter Cookies (HOW?!) that basically melted in our mouths.
Jay S.
Glad I found this place. Hours longer than the store in Cupertino. Will return soon to explore their food.
Jacqueline V.
The food is delicious! If you are a person in soy or gluten free restrictions, it might be hard for you to eat here as pretty much everything has soy. If you are not sensitive to soy then enjoy away! The service is fantastic. They are kind and attentive.
Marc Williams
Super friendly
Johnny T.
Last week my wife want to have some Taiwanese vegetarians so I took her here. Read a lot comments on Yelp this place open only certain hours and foods are good. Place is really easy to find with a big sign in the front. There was a small grocery shop in the middle inside and diner tables surrounding; they had these cubicles seats like in a sushi restaurant which I really like... very clean inside. Services are nice and greetings friendly . I ordered their Eel set meal and wifey had Braised set meal.. --Well to be honest we both agreed that the Eel set meal was super perfect delicious, very tasty. --The Braised soup look very flavor and yummy ( I mean the look of that bowl ), but unfortunately the soup taste is not really super, not much flavors, tasted like water... the noodles in the soup taste normal like home noodles.. I would recommend friends try their Eel set meal instead the Braised noodles... will come back for the Eel set meal again... Parkings are plenty.....
Wow... really good food and quality. Going again here for sure
Incredible place and all 100% vegan! Amazing flavorful food. I thought it was real meat at first but it's all vegan and tastes amazing. Totally incredible and super affordable.
After just coming back from a Taiwan trip to visit relatives, this place just took me back for a meal!! Absolutely wonderful textures and flavorful seasoning. Highly recommend. The little market attached to the restaurant is super cute and sells authentic Taiwanese teas, snacks, and other goodies!
Best place for Taiwanese snacks, teas, and frozen foods with organic, preservative-free, environmentally conscious direction!! Good selection, really friendly helpful staff, and reasonable prices!
A cute and tiny Chinese grocery store that has various organic goods that I have never seen before! Lots of different snacks, frozen foods, dried goods, and more. They have fancy teas and organic soy sauces, which I thought was very unique! This grocery store is connected to Joy Heart Cafe, which has vegan and vegetarian bentos. A very wholesome and cute store to check out in San Jose!
There used to be a Heartland in Fremont, but I was happy to find one up the street from my office in San Jose. This place has two parts - a small restaurant and a mini market. They specialize in vegetarian goods. They offer fun health(ier) snacks, dried pantry items, spices, herbs, oils, vinegars & elixers, personal care as well as some eco products. Their freezer is stocked with dumplings, sticky rice "tamales" mock meats, veggies, soup bases and much more. Everything is vegan or vegetarian and for the most part organic and certified with many other ISO marks. If you are vegan, be sure to double check with the worker to make sure the product is fully vegan before purchasing.The employees here are friendly and helpful. I've always been able to find what I'm looking for here. Please bear in mind that since this is a specialty shop, the prices everyday items are a smidge higher than what you would find in a regular Asian market. BUT, you'll be able to find some pretty amazing things here that the Asian market might not carry. If you're on a budget, only purchase the specialty items here. They frequently bring in new things so it's always fun popping in to see what's new to try. I recently bought some (vegan) chocolate almonds which I thought would just be your regular dark chocolate covered almonds but boy was I surprised! The almonds had a thin cookie/wafer-like coating on it, then dusted in cocoa powder. It was not overly sweet, just a touch of bitter and had a satisfying crunch. Priced at $7.50 per pouch, it was a bit expensive but I had never had anything like that before, so it was worth it. It's for amazing finds like that which keep me coming back!If you are vegan and miss eating wafer cookies (like Quadrines and Loacker), Li Zen brand makes two really tasty varieties: Salted Cashew and Herb, and Chocolate. Both are very mild in flavor and just enough to satisfy that craving and you won't feel gross from any kind of sugar rush.The restaurant side is super quaint and offers a nice variety of Taiwanese comfort favorites. Most of it is vegan but some dishes may contain egg so be sure to clarify with the server. I recommend the Braised Noodle Soup but pretty much anything on the menu is amazing!In regards to COVID, I feel very safe shopping here. They only 3 visitors inside at a time (or at least the last time I was there, this may change of course). They require all customers to wear masks and use hand sanitizer before entering. In an effort to reduce waste, they welcome you to use their basket to bring your items to your car and return the it outside their store. There is an acrylic barrier between shopper and cashier when you check out and they offer contactless payment as well. Solid COVID adaptation if you ask me! I noticed most shoppers also wear gloves inside the store, so that helped me feel more normal since I also am a glove wearer!Love this place!
(Translated by Google) Delicious food and good service! Tasty vegetarian food with flavor of home. Wonderful service and cozy decor.
I didn't expect such a cute place to be located in this plaza. Joyheart Cafe is a Taiwanese vegetarian/vegan restaurant that also houses a specialty grocery store. The interior is quiet and very inviting. They even have some little booths with power outlets, so I suppose some people come here to work? I've tried a few things here and I enjoyed most of them. The only item I haven't enjoyed so far is the braised noodle soup. The broth is too oily for my tastes and the noodles themselves weren't that great. I love the meal sets. Good amount of food for reasonable prices. I wish they stocked their desserts more often so I could try them! I think Joyheart Cafe is well worth a visit if you're in the area. It's a lovely spot that's quiet, inviting, and serves good food. The service is also friendly. It's so cozy here that it feels like I'm just eating at someone's home.
I've been here a couple of times and it's ok but not my favorite places to come to eat vegan Taiwanese dishes. It's located adjacent to a market that sells specialty vegetarian products from Asia. The market is actually very cool as they have very interesting items I've never seen before and I actually did a little shopping to try out some different cooking oils I had never seen before. The cafe itself is pretty small but it's never been very crowded so there is never a wait. I liked the little booth tables they have set up, it's simple but clean. You basically sit down and they come over and take your order and then after you are done you pay at the register. The menu has is quite unique and I have never seen this type of menu before ever. Even the noodle soup they serve here is very different than the ramen you get elsewhere. The menu is all vegetarian but most of the dishes are not vegan unless you specifically ask for it that way. It says on the menu vegan option available on the dishes that can be made this way. More on that later. The first time I came here I tried the braised noodle soup. It comes with an option of vegan noodles without egg, mushrooms, daikon, tomatoes, bean curd and braised tofu a small amount of bok choy and a vegetarian nugget. The broth it comes with is very unique and I would say that it herbal in flavor and strong in different flavors. To me the broth tastes a bit medicinal like it would be used good for you to heal yourself. I like the taste but it may not be for everyone. The mushroom is also very strong like it was reconstituted from it's dried form. The daikon was very flavorful and absorbed the broth really well. Not sure what the veggie nugget was made with but I was told it was vegan. Noodles were ok not like fresh cut noodles would taste like but they were good. Overall I would recommend trying this especially if you want a different take on noodle soup. The second time I came here I asked the waitress what she recommended as I wanted to try something different than before. I was leaning to get the tofu curry dish as it had different veggies, potato and pumpkin. The lady seemed to recommend the vegetarian eel rice dish. I'm open to try new things so I got the dish but told her to make it vegan not vegetarian. Now I don't know if all my questions threw her off or there was a language barrier but she definitely understood the term vegan. Anyway when the dish came I went ahead and started eating the dish. My first bite tasted really fishy. Now I don't mind eating seaweed or nori and I actually love some taste like that but I absolutely hate fish sauce even if I wasn't going to eat vegetarian. I just hate the taste. This tasted very fishy. Obviously they were going for an eel taste but it was overkill. The whole bottom of the eel was on seaweed and the top had seaweed strips. Also the texture of the eel was not great. It tasted spongy to me and the sauce was really sweet. It came with string beans which were great and I even liked the mushrooms that were on the side. Then I ate what i thought was just a yellow spiralized Asian vegetable. Not knowing a lot of Asian veggies anyway I just assumed it was something new to me. It tasted actually really bland like it had really know real taste. I was like half through my meal when the lady asked if everything was ok. I asked her about what the noodles were to be informed what I was eating. Turns out it was egg that was made in noodles. Basically I said I ordered the vegan version and why did they give me the egg. She then talked to the lady who took my order and they talked in Taiwanese or whatever and she kind of said oh I forgot. Then they asked if they should remake the dish and I said I was already half done and I basically didn't like the dish anyway. What bothered me the most is I thought I would be given at least a discount as the dish was like $16 but they didn't seem to think making such a
Nice vegetarian place that also sell quality vegetarian products from Asia ( mostly from Taiwan). Very clean restaurant. Friendly staffs. Delicious Asian vegetarian foods.
Restaurantji Recommends
Oh yum! Vegans/Vegetarians, please take a detour and stop here for lunch or dinner. This place is DELICIOUS! My sister, boyfriend and I came here to try some yummy food. My sister, who's vegan, recommended this place after looking up vegan-friendly places in the area. I'll be honest, I was a little surprised when we first pulled up here - it's located in the middle of a bunch of businesses, and there isn't any other food places super close by. My fears were soon put to rest! The staff was super friendly and seated us quickly, and we were given menus to look at. Almost everything except for the Unagi can be made vegan, and the only reason the unagi can't is because it contains egg whites. We each decided to get something different - I got the unagi, my sister got the vegan minced pork with rice, and my boyfriend got the vegan braised noodle soup. We were blown away! If you ordered the "set" like we did, you got this beautifully plated entree with sesame mochi, fruit, and pickled veggies on the side. The beautiful wood trays were basically begging to be instagrammed, and I definitely indulged. Vegetarian Eel Rice (vegetarian only due to egg whites) I LOVED this dish. As a self-proclaimed carnivore (jk!), I'm always pretty skeptical of meat substitutes. This unagi changed all of that. The flavoring was on point, and the texture and taste was great. If I closed my eyes and someone gave me this without telling me it was "fake" unagi, I would have assumed someone gave me a nicely grilled piece of salmon. The texture flaked in my mouth the way a perfectly cooked salmon would. The eel teriyaki sauce definitely made it taste more like unagi though! My only complaint is that I wish I ordered double because I was still hungry. It came with some mushrooms and yummy egg strips on the side as well. Minced Pork with Rice (Vegan or Vegetarian) This was also really yummy! This is probably the most "basic" of the menu, as they used a mix of tofu and vegan ham to recreate the "minced pork" over rice. Although it was good, I would say that this doesn't really mimic the feeling of taiwanese Lu Rou Fan 滷肉饭, as it doesn't quite give you the heavy comforting feeling that the meat version does. Braised Noodle Soup (Vegan or Vegetarian) This was another breakout star! This is very similar to the Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup, and so, so delicous! The broth is less beefy (obviously), and more tomato-based, but it was still a very similar flavor with the soy and star anise. This soup is also a massive portion, and has delicious noodles to soak it all up. I would definitely come here again! I wish JoyHeart sold their unagi substitute because I would LOVE to be able to eat this at home. After eating in, definitely also stop by the market to peruse some of the goodies they sell. A lot of it is vegan/vegetarian/gluten-free friendly! My sister was able to find Vegan Danish Butter Cookies (HOW?!) that basically melted in our mouths.
Glad I found this place. Hours longer than the store in Cupertino. Will return soon to explore their food.
The food is delicious! If you are a person in soy or gluten free restrictions, it might be hard for you to eat here as pretty much everything has soy. If you are not sensitive to soy then enjoy away! The service is fantastic. They are kind and attentive.
Super friendly
Last week my wife want to have some Taiwanese vegetarians so I took her here. Read a lot comments on Yelp this place open only certain hours and foods are good. Place is really easy to find with a big sign in the front. There was a small grocery shop in the middle inside and diner tables surrounding; they had these cubicles seats like in a sushi restaurant which I really like... very clean inside. Services are nice and greetings friendly . I ordered their Eel set meal and wifey had Braised set meal.. --Well to be honest we both agreed that the Eel set meal was super perfect delicious, very tasty. --The Braised soup look very flavor and yummy ( I mean the look of that bowl ), but unfortunately the soup taste is not really super, not much flavors, tasted like water... the noodles in the soup taste normal like home noodles.. I would recommend friends try their Eel set meal instead the Braised noodles... will come back for the Eel set meal again... Parkings are plenty.....