Bar Moga: What’s Vegetarian Editorial Review

Bar Moga is a Japanese cocktail bar, and its food menu leans on seafood and meat. Vegetarians still have a short list of real dishes here, led by a vegetable ramen and a garlic omurice. Come for the drinks and a couple of solid vegetarian plates. A big vegetarian dinner needs another restaurant.

The bar sits on West Houston Street in Greenwich Village and plays a 1920s theme, with jazz music and craft cocktails. The food follows yoshoku, the Western-style comfort cooking that grew popular in Japan in the Taisho period. The menu lists a Wagyu Toast, a Katsu Sando with sakura pork, a Kogashi Duck Roast, and a Gyutan Curry with simmered beef tongue. Seafood runs through the small plates, including Hamachi Carpaccio, Golden Uni Pan, and a Uni Arancini with snow crab. Most of that menu is closed to you.

Five dishes carry an asterisk that means vegetarian or vegan substitution available. Kari Kari Vegetable Ramen is the main event, with crispy vegetables, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and a vegetarian soy milk broth. Garlic Omurice puts an omelette over garlic rice with house-made ketchup sauce. Potato Salad comes with whole grain mustard, mayo, carrot, onion, and lotus. Grilled Caesar Salad uses little gem lettuce, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and garlic croutons, and a traditional Caesar often includes anchovy, so ask the server about the dressing. Koucha Pannacottini, an Earl Grey panna cotta with gin-based caramel sauce, closes the meal.

An asterisk flags a substitution and does not promise a meat-free dish, so tell your server you eat vegetarian or vegan before you order. Regular Omu Rice uses chicken rice and a veal-based demi-glace, which shows how close the meat versions sit to the vegetarian ones. Bar Moga does not publish a note about shared fryers, grills, or prep surfaces, so this profile leaves cross-contact notes blank.

Drinks are the draw. Signature cocktails include Life in EZO with Ohoro gin and lavender, Bee-Bop with brown butter-washed gin and honey, and Princess Mononoke with ancho pepper and yuzu koshō. The whiskey list covers Yamazaki 12 Year, Hakushu 12 Year, and several Hibiki bottles, and flights are on the menu. A Zero Proof section covers anyone who skips alcohol. Daydreaming, with lemon, yuzu, agave, shiso, and seltzer, is one of the zero proof picks. The cocktail menu changes, and the site notes that its PDF menus hold the latest versions, so check them before you go.

Hours split into evening service and a weekend brunch. The kitchen closes at 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday service runs 5 p.m. to midnight, Friday and Saturday run 5 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., and Sunday runs 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday brunch runs noon to 3 p.m. The site mentions live jazz every Monday night. You can reserve through Resy, where tables were open for the evening we checked, or order pickup and delivery through Toast. The private dining room seats up to 20 guests.

Book a Monday table for the jazz, order the ramen and the omurice, and confirm each substitution with your server.