{"id":15784,"date":"2016-04-13T20:54:30","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T03:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.happycow.net\/blog\/?p=15784"},"modified":"2020-03-27T14:14:56","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T21:14:56","slug":"eating-vegan-tokyo-can","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.happycow.net\/blog\/eating-vegan-tokyo-can\/","title":{"rendered":"Eating Vegan In Tokyo: You Can Do It!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Screen<\/a>In what seemed like a fool hardy plan I booked a last minute trip to Tokyo with no prior experience of Japan and speaking no Japanese. As a long term strict vegan the prospect of spending two weeks in a country renown for their fish and inflexibility, rather than their vegan friendly cuisine, was a little daunting. I’m not the most adventurous of travellers, but I managed to eat, eat well and eat vegan. I thought my experience might help others, so here’s how I managed it and what I learned:<\/p>\n

1) Online resources<\/strong>
\nDon’t be daunted; like this article, there is a wealth of online information already out there that can really help you. HappyCow<\/a> is always my first stop, but many others including ‘Is it vegan Japan<\/a>‘ and ‘Barnivore<\/a>‘ for food and drink, as well as useful cultural information\u00a0<\/span>such as ‘Experience Japan with Yuka<\/a>‘. In Tokyo there’s also free Wi-Fi offered for tourists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2) Avoiding fish<\/strong>
\nSpeaking to friends with Japanese contacts I found out that fish is in so much Japanese food and even the most basic miso soup or rice balls in omnivorous restaurants will likely contain bonito. Even if my Japanese language skills were up to conversing with the waitress, unlike America or the UK, Japanese chefs are reluctant to change or substitute ingredients because they want to make and present the food \u201cas good as it could possibly be\u201d, so to request a change is to undermine the effort they have gone to. However, fear not. Thanks to HappyCow<\/a> I found that even somewhere as ‘fish-oriented’ as Tokyo there are a good number of vegan only and vegetarian only restaurants throughout the city. At these restaurants you can order anything on the menu and there’s no need to worry about any hidden fishy bits. If you are in mixed company it’s also worth checking out the reviews of some omnivorous restaurant too, as they can sometimes surprise you by offering ‘vegan specific’ menus, by initially sticking to vegan only places, I almost missed out on Chaya<\/a> and The Pink Cow <\/a>, both of which had excellent clearly-marked vegan food.<\/p>\n

\"Dumplings<\/a>

Dumplings and Seafood Platter at Loving Hut<\/p><\/div>\n

3) Food style <\/strong>
\nI like to eat at a range of restaurants, trying different styles and price ranges, especially on holiday. In Tokyo I tried a few very high-end, trendy restaurants, inexpensive noodle bars, caf\u00e9s and tea rooms. While there was a good range of food I noticed there was a definite style to the vegan dishes on offer: grain salads are very popular (sticky rice, grains and vegetables in a light sauce), ramen (noodles, vegetables and tofu in a heavily flavoured broth) and vegetable soup (the style seemed to be a lightly season thin broth with large chunky vegetables). Two places that had really memorable food, and probably more of what I expected from Japan, were Loving Hut<\/a> where we found vegan-ised steamed dumplings and Unadon (jellied eel on a bed of rice) and Komaki Syokudo <\/a>which offered ‘shojin ryori’ or Buddhist temple food (many small courses of simple pickled vegetable, grains and flavoured beans, with a sesame ‘ice cream’ and red bean jam for pudding).<\/p>\n

4) Language barrier
\n<\/strong>Even in central Tokyo English language skills vary substantially from person to person. In some places, the waiter will see you are a tourist and immediately offer you an English menu and start a conversation in English, other staff may only know a few words, and in some places no English is spoken at all. Don’t worry, there a few easy things you can do to get by:<\/p>\n