Hello, my name’s Amanda and I am vegetarian.
We travelled to Tokyo for two weeks in December 2019 and being vegetarian brought along a few challenges.
I will say upfront that I am not vegan. I do eat dairy, honey and eggs. I do avoid meat and fish based broths. I do love mochi! My kids and husband are not vegetarian.
So, if you’re vegetarian and planning a trip to Japan you’ve probably heard all sorts of things ranging from “zomg it’s almost impossible!” To… “it’s fine, you’ll eat great.” And I think it is really somewhere in between. And while it wasn’t as simple to find a meal for me as it was for my omnivorous family, I never went hungry.
Convenience stores quickly became my friend. If in doubt, duck into a Lawsons, FamilyMart or 7-11 and pick up a snack or snacks. I absolutely fell in love with pickled plum onigiri and steamed pizza rolls. Wash it down with a can of coffee and we’re good to go.
Western style chain restaurants generally had a vegetarian option, or at least a meat free option. Wendy’s had an awesome pumpkin soup that I ate a fair few times. And loved!
One afternoon I walked around Akihabara for about an hour looking for somewhere to eat that was vego friendly and had a spare seat, I wanted something traditional but ended up going with Denny’s. I ordered what I thought was a plain pasta with sauce and it came out covered in ham. I picked the meat off but it was a little disappointing. I found ingredients lists were few and far between and sometimes it was all just a leap of faith.
Some small eating spots are adding more options and I had the BEST veggie burger I have ever had in my life at Shogun Burger in Shinjuku. It was pricey but so so worth it.
Places serving breakfast usually have great meat free options like pancakes, toast, fruit, eggs. If it’s a set that means it’s a meal and comes with a drink.
The place I found hardest to get a decent veggo meal was Tokyo Disneyland. HEAPS of snack food but meals all seemed to include meat. I had ice cream, chips, churros and pop corn over the course of a 12 hour day. It was a great day but I had to stop at FamilyMart on the way home for a meal.
Truth is vegetarian and vegan diets are not too widespread in Japan with only a small percentage of the population adopting this lifestyle so the market for eating like this isn’t huge. However with more and more tourists coming over, hopefully there will be more options for me next time I go.
I highly recommend the Happy Cow app for finding vegetarian and vegan eats. Lots of places in Tokyo are added there and it’s in English. It even has reviews and menus.
I also recommend being able to say the following –
肉も魚も食べません
Niku mo sakana mo tabemasen
This means I do not eat meat or fish. It will help when asking what’s in what you’re about to eat.
I’ll write more about specific places to eat in Tokyo in a future post. But for now I hope this has given you the confidence to explore Tokyo and all it’s delicious meat-free eats.
The Otaku Mum 