Vegetarian food?

disneyfanbecky

Mouseketeer
Joined
May 23, 2010
Planning a trip to Tokyo in May 2017! The reason for me is to see Tokyo Disney, but I will be going with friends so we will also be spending time in Tokyo (and perhaps elsewhere in Japan - we haven't gotten that far into planning yet but would also like to find a more relaxing area of Japan to visit).

We are all vegetarian (and do not eat fish) - is it hard to find vegetarian options at Tokyo Disney and in Tokyo itself? Any suggestions of places to eat or resources to use? Or even photos of food to get me excited instead of nervous? Thanks in advance!!
 
My husband and I are vegans and our time in the parks was the most difficult for finding things to eat compared to the rest of Japan. Your group, being vegetarians, probably won't have it nearly as hard. I'd imagine you'd have a lot of pastry options if nothing else.

We stayed at the Hilton and took advantage of their breakfast buffet every morning. They had lots of stuff we could eat and there would be even more options for you. During the day, we survived off our own snacks that we brought and supplemented with french fries :rolleyes: which were one of the extremely few vegan items they sold in the parks. There is one restaurant in each park that offers allergen meals -- Eastside Café in TDL and Ristorante di Canaletto in TDS, assuming it hasn't changed since we were there. We could've gotten a vegan/vegetarian meal from those places had we been able to get on the priority seating lists, but we weren't. You might have better luck with that but, either way, don't stress over it. You won't starve to death if you don't get in. You might just spend the whole day eating junk food. :mickeybar After the parks, we'd head back to the hotel room and eat from the food we kept in the fridge.

The rest of the country was easier to navigate with dietary restrictions. Here are my tips:

Dashi is the ingredient that's going to give you the most trouble. It's a fish sauce and it's in just about everything. If you don't eat fish, you'll want to ask about dashi before ordering.

Get the Happy Cow app. It'll use your location to point you to nearby veg/veg-friendly restaurants. These are mostly little mom and pop type places and their hours of operation can be unreliable, so don't wait until your already starving to start looking for a place to eat. You might get there and find the restaurant closed... four restaurants in a row. :sad:

Worst comes to worst, go to an Indian restaurant.

Somewhere on this forum is an incredibly useful set of dietary restriction translation cards that explain in Japanese what you cannot eat based on your type of allergy/diet. We printed a small stack of the "I'm a vegan" cards and took them with us. They were invaluable outside of the vegan restaurants. Instead of trying to explain our diet through a language barrier we'd just hand over the card and, a few minutes later, that person would hand us food we could eat. :laughing:

Make use of the convenience stores. Seriously. On the first day of our trip we walked into a 7-11 (and then a Lawson's and then another couple of chains...) and, using the 'vegan card,' asked the employees for help. They were incredibly accommodating and went through the ingredient labels of many of the prepackaged foods for us. We bought everything they said was safe and took pictures of the labels before eating it. That way we could match the pictures to the items next time we went into a convenience store, which happened at least once a day. I developed a bit of an obsession with umeboshi onigiri. :oops: I make it at home to this day.

T's Tan Tan in Tokyo Station right before you go down to the platform for the train that will take you to Disney, is a vegan/fish-free ramen restaurant. It's definitely worth taking the time to stop there at least once.
 
Honestly I think your best bet is to look up restaurants (in Tokyo and Disneyland) on Yelp and Tripadvisor, then going to those restaurant websites and looking up their menus. Most of the restaurants in Tokyo did not have english menus so I think the pre-printed card idea is awesome. As for Tokyo Disney....some of the CMs spoke english and many did not (this surprised me a bit). You'd want to look up the restaurants ahead of time and probably figure out that way where you can eat.
 
According to TDR website, the restaurants that offer vegetarian menus are:
Eastside Cafe (TDL)
Center Street Coffeehouse (TDL)
Ristorante di Canaletto (TDS)

Can you eat eggs? I am not sure if their breads are egg-free.
 


I liked the vegetarian curry from hungrybear restaurant. Like the others have mentioned, the Italian places were great for Margherita pizza or pasta. I always really wanted a mickey shaped hamburger so i just got one with no patty so it was like a tomato sandwich. I will admit that trying to eat vegetarian was a bit if a challenge since that is not a concept that Japanese people really understand. I did a lot of snacking to get full: popcorn, pizza spring rolls, pastries, ice cream treats, mickey waffles, potato bites, ratatouille salad, mochi balls, churros etc.
 
Thank you all! This is really incredibly helpful. I really look forward to food on trips, so this is definitely a bit different for me!

I really appreciate all the tips and especially the specific suggestions - so helpful! The Happy Cow app sounds great, I haven't figured out yet how to get a data plan there or how expensive that would be so I will have to look into that now.

Yes, we do eat eggs!
 
We went to SORANOIRO NIPPON in Tokyo Ramen Street in Tokyo station. They have "Veggie noodle" and we ordered it for DD. I did not taste it, but DD like it and said it was sweet. I have pic in my trip report, but it's not a good photo. You can see better photo on their website.

Japan Vegetarian Society's website has list of the restaurants: http://www.jpvs.org/menu-restaurant/#tokyo

I hope it's OK to post that link on this board. Google translation can be funny, but you can get the idea. As it gets close to your trip, you will have to check the restaurants' websites or maybe even call them directly to make sure they are still in business and offer vegetarian menu. Speak slowly in sort, simple sentence...and hopefully they will understand English. :)

Words that may help your search:
東京 (Tokyo) ベジタリアン (Vegetarian) レストラン (restaurant)
 


I did some research on options at Ikspiari (the mall near Tokyo Disney) and wanted to share my findings in case it helps someone else's planning! Hoping to report back when I return (next May!) with a trip report and food findings :)
  • Ikspiari Kitchen - The food court, someone said you can request vegetarian Udon and no meat Yakisoba, acai bowl
  • Moonsoon Cafe - Has vegan options on the menu like spinach vegan salad, cilantro salad, skewer of vegetables, tofu noodle soup, fried rice with vegetable.
  • Cafe Kaila - Hawaiian food place has vegetarian omelette, smoothies, french toast etc looks good!
  • Guzman y Gomez - Mexican place that looks like it has a vegetarian burrito
  • Pita00 (marg pizza, pasta, salad)
  • Kua Aina - avocado and cheese sandwich for about $8
 

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