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Vegetarian lingo 2012/11/3 13:08
Traveling with a strict vegetarian. Need to learn some key phrases to help us get by.

Plan to eat noodles but want to make sure the soup/broth is not meat based.

If anyone had some good advice on making sure meals have no meat in them it would be much appreciated!
by Veggie (guest)  

Re: Vegetarian lingo 2012/11/4 10:39
Strict vegetarian is very rare among Japanese people, and Japan is not a touristic country where foreign travelers, especially strict vegetarians are very rare. As you may have noticed, most of Japanese food (originally Japanese) is based on a kind of broth which comes from dried kelp (昆布) and dried bonito (鰹節).

As for noodles, most of Ramen soup is made from pork, chicken or some traditional Japanese broth including dried bonito. Soup of Udon noodle and Soba noodle is based on the traditional broth.

So, honestly speaking, you should have very hard times in Japan to find a "strictly vegetarian" food. As for noodle, my only idea is to go to some Soba restaurants (not so many) where you can have Mizu Soba (water soba) or Shio Soba (salt soba). I think these soba do not use bonito based broth.

Some Shojin ryori (精進料理)restaurants (in general somewhat expensive) might have strict vegetarian food and you can find them in big cities like Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. Koyasan is the place where you can find many of them.

Some western style restaurants might have vegetarian menus, but again they are expensive.

In the ordinary middle or lower class diners, you should have very little chance to have "strictly vegetarian" foods. If you care about what you are eating, you should have printed paper like below and show it to the restaurant.

私は厳密な菜食主義者で、動物性のものは一切食べられません。出汁に鰹節が入っているのもだめです。このお店には私が食べられるものはありますか?

(I am a strict vegetarian who can not eat any kind of animal meat. I do not eat when bonito is in the broth. Are there something which I can eat?)
by frog1954 rate this post as useful

... 2012/11/4 11:46
There are many useful threads if you search for "vegetarian" or "strict vegetarian" in the search box above.

As frog1954 has explained the concept is relatively foreign in Japan so rather than trying to eat strictly vegetarian in normal Japanese restaurants I'd be inclined to hunt out vegetarian restaurants before you go to Japan and have a plan. In general Indian restaurants seem to be an option for strict vegetarians as they often have some items on the menu and understand vegetarians.

Here's a few options mentioned in other threads in the past:-
http://www.bento.com/r-veg.html
http://www.vegietokyo.com/info4vegie/restaurant/index-l.html
http://www.happycow.net/asia/japan/

Enjoy your trip!
by GC3 rate this post as useful

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