If you’re wondering why the pace has slowed down around here, well, it’s because my time in Japan has come to an end. After three months and no job — no job that wouldn’t require me to stay for years, anyway — my tourist visa expired and I had to hop a plane back to the U.S. Not that sticking around for a few years wouldn’t be fun, but that would require making my relationship a long-distance relationship again, and we’ve both had quite enough of that.
So, how to sum up my vegetarian experience? … Well, it was definitely tough, as I knew it would be. It was especially hard because I was living with a non-vegetarian and because getting groceries in our neighborhood was hard. But I survived, and so can you. Here are a few important things to keep in mind if you’re a vegetarian traveling and/or living in Japan.
- If you don’t know what’s in it, assume it contains fish.
I knew this well beforehand, but if you haven’t already heard, this is the rule. Potato chips, crackers, even ice cream can all contain fish products, not to mention the usuals like soup broth and sauces that are to be suspected no matter what country you’re in. (I found minestrone at the conbini. No fish, but it was made with beef broth.) So read labels — if you don’t know Japanese, check out this page for the translations of a few ingredients to watch out for — and don’t think that just because the menu or the waiter says a dish is “vegetarian” that it really is. - Traveling/eating with other vegetarians makes things much easier.
This is true everywhere, but in Japan, “vegetarian” often means “not Japanese food” — making a vegetarian diet much more restrictive on restaurant choices than in the U.S. While in the States you can usually find something to eat at any given eatery, even if it means resigning yourself to a side salad, in Tokyo you’re not even guaranteed that. Which brings me to my next point … - Plan ahead.
Wandering around hoping to find a place where you can eat could take you an hour, which feels like a particularly long time if you’re hungry (and even longer for an omnivorous significant other who could eat at any of those places you can’t). So research restaurants in advance. See the Restaurants section for a list of all the places I’ve written about in this blog or the Links page for other sites with information and recommendations. - Money matters.
Most veggie-friendly places are more expensive than the neighborhood noodle shop. This is generally either because it’s non-Japanese food or because it’s a specialty restaurant, one that specifically caters to vegetarians or macrobiotic dieters. The more money you can spare for meals, the more options you have. - Eating in can be a challenge.
When I lived in Paris (a city that likes to put ham in everything), I cooked for myself a lot. In Tokyo, space is at a premium and for a lot of folks, the “kitchen” consists of two hotplates and a mini-fridge. This means you have to make frequent trips to the market or grocery store, and home-cooked meals have to be simple. If you were a master of dorm-room cuisine in college, those skills may come in very handy in Japan.
My last bit of advice would be to try not to push yourself too much too early, especially if you’re staying for a while. I decided pretty early into my three months that being all right with dashi broth was a compromise I had to make, but I ended up eating one too many bowls of udon in a short time span, trying to be accommodating, and quickly found my limits. I could taste the fish in the broth, all the more so because the soups that didn’t have pieces of meat or fish in them didn’t contain much else (like kitsune udon: just noodles, fried tofu, and scallions). And because there wasn’t much to these dishes, not only was I eating something I didn’t want to eat in the first place, but I wasn’t even getting to be full for the effort.
For the record, it is possible to get by in Japan dashi-free, it’s just one more level of difficulty. Going into it, I never thought I would give in — I’ve been a strict vegetarian almost all my life — but allowing that small amount of fish extract in my food opened up a lot more options. I didn’t like it, but there were several times when it saved an enormous amount of trouble (like being able to stop for tempura-don at the restaurant halfway down the mountain from Jingo-ji temple on the outskirts of Kyoto) and it also helped ease the overall strain of trying to find somewhere to eat when we hadn’t planned ahead. But if you’re adamantly against it, don’t eat it, simple as that.
In any case, I have to say that it’s nice going back to not having to worry about food. Even though I was able to get by in Tokyo, I was always thinking about my next meal, and it got very stressful at times. If I ever end up living in Japan long-term, I’ll be sure to shell out for an apartment with something closer to a real kitchen! (And if I’m living in Japan, that probably means I’m working in Japan, in which case I could afford it — not to mention the pricier, more accommodating restaurants.) In the meantime, I’ll enjoy my wide selection of dining options, my Chipotle, and my real American pizza.
As for the blog, I’m going to try to keep on posting occasionally. If you have any suggestions for topics, or if you’d like to write a guest post or two — something that could turn into a regular gig for the right person — I’d love to hear from you! You can leave your contact information in the comments and I’ll get in touch with you, or you can try to catch me on Skype at mlle-madeleine.
Itadakimasu!
See also:
3 Common “Vegetarian” Menu Items (That Really Aren’t)
