Vegetarian/Vegan and Visiting Japan at New Year’s

Hello Qphelia,

Visiting Japan at New Year’s, Oshogatsu (お正月)

Generally I would NOT recommend visiting Japan during the New Year’s celebration for several reasons

– New Year’s in Japan is family time, like Christmas in Western countries.

– Few shops, stores, restaurants will be open from January 1-4.

– Hotel and ryokan will be very difficult to book.

Oshogatsu is a wonderful time in Japan, here is how you might be able to experience it:

– Book an EXPENSIVE ryokan, probably 6-12 months in advance would be required. Some (wealthy) families book the same ryokan every year for decades. At an upscale ryokan you will be very well taken well care of with breakfast and dinner included. (In Kyoto plan on about $1000 per day for two people at a nice ryokan at New Year’s.)

– If you can stay with friends or family in Japan, you will surely have a great time.

Vegetarian Food in Japan

Vegetarian food in Japan is a rarity. Shojin ryori (精進料理), or ‘temple food’ is your best bet. In Kyoto there are a number of restaurants that offer shojin ryori, but many use fish based dashi (出汁), soup stock, so this won’t work for vegans. Shojin ryori is fairly expensive and more restaurant are open from 11am to 4pm. So, dinner is not available.

Shojin ryori article in Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cuisine

Happy Cow’s Vegetarian Guide for Kyoto

http://www.happycow.net/asia/japan/kyoto/index.html

Vegan Food in Japan

Vegan Food is virtually impossible to get in restaurants in Japan. If you are vegan, and you really want to visit Japan, I think that you need to stay somewhere that has an attached kitchen so that you can cook your own food.

In Kyoto, there is Cafe Proverbs [15:17] (formerly Dining Bar Peace and before that Cafe Peace) located in the Hyakuman-ben neighborhood of Demachiyanagi and Kyoto University.

Dining Bar Peace – 100% Vegan in Kyoto (Our review of what is now Cafe Proverbs [15:17])

http://kyotofoodie.com/dining-bar-peace-100-vegan-in-kyoto/

Cafe Proverbs [15:17] homepage

http://www.proverbs1517.com/

My wife has students who are pure vegetarians, though not vegans, and the general agreement is that Japan is a nightmare: everything you order that appears to be vegetarian turns out to have dashi in it.

BIG thing to watch out for, you vegetarians: DO NOT EAT any prepared egg dishes except at western-style (yoshoku) family restaurants and such. It is usual to cook eggs with a little dashi here. That lovely roll of pure egg omelet? The egg itself has dashi in it: it’s not rolled around fish, but is fish through and through.

My own feeling, of course, is that bonito are plentiful and fast-breeding, so you can set aside all moral scruples when eating them in dashi, and that if Zen monks can eat something, so can you. But I recognize that this is not an entirely fair (or unbiased) sentiment.

Me, I eat anything that doesn’t run away fast enough. Most Japanese I know well are horrified at what I’ll eat. Ants? Very good for you, with a pleasantly citrus-acid crunch.