Good Karma Vegan House
$ - inexpensive
Chinese, Vietnamese
Fast, cheap food
Good Karma is an all-vegan restaurant in Downtown San Jose. They have several mock meat options, as well as rice, vegetables, and tofu. It's a very small restaurant, and the prices are low.
Be sure to bring cash; they don't accept credit cards.
Please note the new address! They moved to a new location in July 2006.
Added by Suzanne on Feb 5 05 (updated Jul 18 06)
Reviews
In the beginning of my veganism in San Jose i went to this shop about 4 times a week. If you have not tried there Italian tofu i highly suggest it along with the tofu meatball. I also enjoyed the mung bean pies. She will warm it for you if you like. It gives it a warm honey like taste. I have found recently that good karma uses white table sugar in their food, I don't eat refined sugar anymore. So if you are like me then she will at times either steam tofu for you or fry some for you. Also the steamed veggies are great as well as the mash potatoes. The rest of the food has sugar as i found do most of the vegan Chinese places Ive ever been to. I really love this place it has a warm spot in my heart. I highly recommend it to everyone. When i was really poor she would on occasion let me eat for free that day allowing me to pay her back when i had the money.
Stopped by Good Karma for a quick dinner before the San Jose Sharks game. Decent little place. Food was good but not spectacular. I had the brown rice plate with the curry, Mongolian turkey and BBQ drumstick sides. All three sides were good.
Meal was very inexpensive! The two of us ate out fill for $10!! Heck you can't do that at many other places. Would definitely visit again if looking for a quick, inexpensive, vegan meal.
I stopped by Good Karma yesterday. The food was pretty good, though not amazing. They have the food pre-prepared, so you pick out what you want, and they microwave it for you. But for re-heated food, I was impressed. And I got two veggie drumsticks, some veggie fried chicken, and a huge plate of rice with veggies for only $4.00!
The place is very small, so I ended up sharing a table with someone I didn't know. That's fine with me; we ended up having a nice conversation.
If you're on a budget and looking for fast vegan food, I'd definitely recommend this place.
I was visiting friends in San Jose. They didn't know where we could get vegan food, but found this place on an online restaurant guide. So, blindly, we went. Out of four people, I was the only veg*n, though one of them was an ex-lacto/ovo. Everyone was super-impressed, and the San Jose natives returned many times on their own.
The proprietor was very friendly, and we all sampled each other's food and found it to be packed with flavor and nicely prepared. For dessert she gave me a free mung-bean cake, and I shared it with everyone on the way home; it was a big hit.
The lemon-chicken sandwich I had here really made an impression on me! I still think about it sometimes, and if I'm ever back in San Jose I'll definitely be back for more. Everything was so delicious.