Vegan in Japan
Vegan in Japan
Hi!
I’ve been looking at going to Japan but I’ve heard it’s hard being vegan. Ive done some research and alot of vegan places don’t seem accessible. Has anyone had any experience? I’m in a power wheelchair but I’ll also have a push chair.
Thanks!
- 4 Replies
Hi!
You have quite a challenge ahead of you! Vegan food is not common here to begin with.
How about you try to find some places you may want to eat from regular vegan travel blogs and then we can confirm accessibility for you?
In the meantime, we have found a few:
- T’s Tantan (Ramen) – http://www.nre.co.jp/Portals/0/shop/tantan/#page1
- T’s Restaurant (same owners, but more of a restaurant) – http://ts-restaurant.jp/
- Chaya Macrobiotics Shiodome – http://www.chayam.co.jp/restaurant/shiodome.html
Both are listed as accessible.
Also, maybe @ali_muskett from Inside Japan Tours might have an idea (she is vegetarian). Also, Sakamoto-san from Omakase Tours has tours for wheelchair users and also has some for halal, so, he is good at finding places for people who have dietary restrictions.
Lets work through this together!
There is also Sekai Cafe – http://sekai-cafe.com/asakusa/
Their sister site offers vegan bento box lunches for delivery – https://samurai-kitchen.tokyo/en/There are a few Western food options (burgers etc) but not much Japanese food.
Anyway, if you find restaurants that look good, let us know and we can see if they are accessible!
We were in Japan this past June: I am vegan at home but vegetarian when we travel, I speak Japanese (not fluent, but comfortable), and I found it VERY difficult to eat even vegetarian. It’s not impossible, but it is hard and it requires vigilance. (GF is REALLY hard there.)Â In Japanese I would explain no dashi, no bonito, and still things would arrive clearly made with dashi (the smell) and / or covered in heaps of bonito. One of my sons doesn’t eat fish and he started feeling really discouraged when things kept arriving inedible. And he’s a competitive rock climbing teenager, so he eats A LOT.
You don’t say where in Japan you’re going, but a few of the vegan-friendly places we did find were, as you wrote, not Accessible (like up a flight of stairs). However, I have to say that every place we went the staff were so kind, so helpful in offering to carry our son in his chair (son + chair = 105lbs / ~48kg) up and down. Really lovely.
Now, there is a chain called Ippudo which will make (even if not on their menu) a DELICIOUS bowl of vegan ramen: we ate at two of them, one in Kyoto and one in Hiroshima, and both were Accessible. By Accessible, I mean flat-ish entry, and they moved things around to accommodate my son’s chair (and us parents who feed him).
We did see a lot of Italian restaurants (throughout Japan), so that could work for you — pasta with tomato sauce. And Indian-Nepali restaus: we ate at one in Takayama which was totally Accessible. (The food was not amazing but we were eating Indian in Takayama, so ….)
GOOD LUCK and have a wonderful trip!
Oh, good find!
Here is the website: http://www.okabeya.com/lang/en.html
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