Vegetarian in japan

Hi,

Now that travel is sorted, i need some help on food.

My wife is vegetarian, who can eat egg. BUT NO meat, fish/ seafood, pork, beef etc.

What are the vegetarian hotels in Kyoto, Osaka and Japan. I am fine with Indian restaurants, american chains like McDonalds, Pizza places which serve vegetarian pizza or spaghetti and of course Japanese restaurants, which can offer veggie food.

Thanx

I found this article on the Japan times website:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fg20090130nc.html

It's about a temple in Kyoto which has vegetarian food. Most (if not all?) temples in Japan have vegetarian food which is very good because monks are vegetarian and have been eating that way for centuries.

Next time you go to Japan, you should visit the Mount Koya area, all the temples there are vegetarian and serve fine food!

Here's another link:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fg20030314rs.html

Here's a website with listings of both vegetarian and vegan restaurants in various parts of japan http://www.happycow.net/asia/japan/

Eat an eggie. Plenty of those restaurants around.

Vegetarian hotels you won't find. The problem with Japanese food is that many things, like noodle soups, miso soup and even egg rolls contain fish stock, and it is very hard to find places that serve Japanese food without fish stock (dashi).

Indian restaurants, Italian restaurants and the few vegetarian and vegan restaurants in the big cities are your best bet.

I agree with Sira: actual Japanese restaurants are difficult places for a vegetarian, because the staff don't really seem to understand the concept of vegetarianism. In my case, part of the problem is that my Japanese is so bad, and perhaps I just can't make myself understood. However, most of my Japanese friends (who speak excellent English) don't really seem to get the concept either. No matter how much I try, it's really hard to find out if a specific Japanese dish is vegetarian or not.

On the other hand, it's a pity if you can't eat any Japanese food while in Japan. I recommend you try okonomiyaki, the Japanese cabbage pancake, if you find an okonomiyaki restaurant with and English menu / English-speaking staff. I go to a restaurant where they make me a vegetarian okonomiyaki: it has cabbage, egg, cheese, mayonaise, mustard and soy sauce. If your wife can eat eggs and cheese, she might want to try that. It's delicious!

As others have said, it is hard to get by in Japan as a vegetarian, but not impossible. Foreign food is certainly the easiest, although the standard burger joints don't seem to carry vegie burgers etc. But I've seen a few Indian restaurants, plenty of Korean (whilst it tends to have meat, they're normally happy to take that part out), and Italian (pizza/pasta).

Other (Japanese) options include vegetable tempura, vegetarian sushi (inari zushi, egg sushi, I've even seen corn sushi lately!), okonomiyaki as mentioned above and there are a lot of omelette places too.

There are also alot of bakeries that make a range of different snacks, including cheese breads and whatnot. It's hard, but not impossible, have fun!

Freshness Burger now serves a burger made with portobello mushroom/no meat. You might like it.

A lot of the large chain izakayas have a lot of salads on their menu. Maybe she could do with that.