Restaurant Review: Midori’s Floating World Cafe

Midori's Floating World Cafe is a Japanese restaurant in Minneapolis with a large menu and plenty of vegan options. Midori's will show you that Japanese food isn't all fish and rice - they offer everything from vegan tempura to big bowls of soba noodles. The waiters are attentive, and very accommodating to vegan needs. And, although the restaurant is small and cozy, they had no problem accommodating our group of eight.

Although Japanese cuisine is known for using fish in just about everything, Midori's does a wonderful job preparing great, vegan meals. A big bowl of steamy edamame sprinkled with course salt is my favorite starter, even with the large selection of hot and cold appetizers on the menu. To drink, I had one of the cafe's beautiful "art teas". Whole flowers bloom in the bottom of large, clear mugs to create a flavorful and appealing drink. For my main course, I ordered the vegetarian sushi dinner, which included ten pieces of rolled sushi, six pieces of nigiri sushi, salad, and a shiitake broth soup.

Though everything I tried was delicious, if you just can't decide, get one of their bento boxes. You can get them with vegan tempura and sushi, and they all come with soup, Japanese pickles, salad and a few other things.

Other than the sushi and bento boxes there are udon and soba noodles, donburi, onigiri, soups, salads, and, if you still have room, desserts.

Midori's Floating World Cafe is open for lunch and dinner Tuesday through Saturday, and dinner on Sunday. They close at 2pm after lunch and reopen at 5pm for dinner, and are closed on Mondays. If you've been to Midori's before, don't get confused: they just changed locations, but the new one is only a few hundred feet from the old.

For a great place to experience a wonderful Japanese meal, I highly recommend Midori's.