At Lion West Portal, vegan options aren’t an afterthought.
Open the extensive sushi menu, and one page is dedicated to vegan selections while the other has your typical fish-focused fare. But unique to the vegan side is the option to indulge in all the fish-free sushi you can eat ($40 per adult, $20 per child).
San Francisco is no stranger to all-you-can-eat sushi or even vegan sushi. Shizen became a pioneer for the vegan sushi scene in 2015, and post-pandemic, all-you-can-eat is once again booming. But combining the two concepts hasn’t been seen in San Francisco — that is, until Tamir Erdenebat (“Chef Tom”) added it to his menu at Lion.
“A lot of my inspiration actually came from my customers, because they bring a lot of friends who are actually vegan,” he said. “So I was like, ‘You know what? Let’s make a really elaborate vegan menu.’”
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Guests who order the all-you-can-eat option get 90 minutes to fill their bellies with as much vegan sushi and appetizers as they can, and they’re allowed to order two rolls and as many appetizers as they want in one go. (Nine eight-piece rolls are available on the menu, priced à la carte at $15-$25 each.) Erdenebat said he’s seen an individual diner actually eat the entire sushi menu by himself.
“I was like, ‘Whoa, that’s impressive,’” Erdenebat said.
Developing the vegan sushi menu was easier than you might think, Erdenebat said, explaining that many Japanese sauces are naturally vegan, so he uses traditional sushi techniques and applies it to vegetables. One of the most popular rolls is the Vegan Rainbowl Roll, which features cauliflower, avocado, cucumber, roasted bell pepper, braised eggplant, candied yam and sesame. Many of his rolls, including the California roll, use cauliflower as a substitute for imitation crab.
For vegan appetizers, Lion’s sunomono cucumber salad is quite popular, featuring sesame, pickled mozuku seaweed and yuzu-pepper. Other options include five varieties of sweet tofu pockets, including those with natto, eggplant and sweet potato. Appetizers are priced à la carte at $5 each.
While Lion does not offer all-you-can-eat non-vegan sushi, it does offer $2 nigiri happy hour Wednesday to Sunday from 5-9 p.m.
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For Erdenebat, Lion West Portal is much more than a restaurant — it’s the location where he started his sushi career and met his wife. Erdenebat began his sushi journey in 2002 at Fuji Japanese Restaurant, which was located in the same exact spot that is now Lion. His future wife, who was a student at nearby San Francisco State University at the time, was a regular customer.
Erdenebat opened his first restaurant, Elephant Sushi, in 2012, growing the concept into a mini-chain of five restaurants before selling the brand in 2019. Erdenebat opened Sancha Sushi in 2021, then Lion in 2024.
“Lion is very special to me,” Erdenebat said. “It’s like a memory lane. It’s like my origin story.”
Erdenebat said that his next project is to create a Los Angeles-style hand roll bar on the upstairs mezzanine, offering both fish and vegan options.
Lion West Portal, 301 W. Portal Ave., San Francisco; 415-742-4872, Instagram: @lionwestportal. Open Wednesday to Sunday from 5-9 p.m.
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