Japanese Restaurants in Tokyo
Watashitachi wa bejitarian desu. Watashitachi wa niku toh sakana o tabemasen. Bejitarian tabemono arimasu ka? (We are vegetarians. We do not eat meat or fish. Do you have anything vegetarian?)
This is typical of our conversations with the waiting staff in the restaurants in Tokyo. To be honest, it is difficult to be a vegetarian in Tokyo if you want to eat at the best Japanese restaurants in the city. Not otherwise since there are tons of Italian, Mexican, Indian and other cuisine restaurants that can serve vegetarian food. A Japanese friend sent me a list of some of the best Japanese restaurants in Tokyo. These were not the ones that you would find on TripAdvisors of the world. I called some 5 of them, but none were ready to prepare vegetarian food. Perhaps they might be less accommodating over the phone.
That said, there certainly are a few really nice Japanese restaurants that cater to vegetarians, and they can provide you with very unique and amazing culinary experiences. Here are a few that we went to..
Nagamine in Ginza served us Kaiseki, a traditional elaborate multi-course Japanese dinner. It is one of the rare places in town that serve vegetarian Kaiseki. Each course showcased the flavorful fresh produce of the season. And the courses kept coming. While they tasted great, most dishes were pretty adventurous for our Indian palate. And as you can see in the picture, we have started getting better and comfortable at eating with chopsticks. We don’t dread it any more, except when we are eating noodles, like when we were having ramen at T’s Tantan.
You can’t come to Tokyo and not have ramen. While there is a ramen shop on practically every corner in Tokyo and some that have over 90 minutes wait times, T’s Tantan at Tokyo Station is perhaps the only place in Tokyo where you can have vegetarian ramen, the Japanese noodle soup. It is in fact a vegan ramen shop, and it was totally worth the trip to the Tokyo Station. Kids loved it too.
Narukiyo is a small restaurant after the chef-owner’s first name. I visited this place with a Japanese friend. The restaurant has an open kitchen and you sit at the counter around the kitchen. There is no menu. You eat what the chef prepares, and for me the chef prepared at least some 5 different vegetarian dishes. It was fun watching him cook and chat and joke around with the patrons. A high energy place where everyone was having a good time. It is certainly not a kids-friendly place though.
Shinjuku Tsunahachi So-honten is a short walk from the Shinjuku Station. It is a great tempura place. What made it special for us is that it was our first meal in Japan, and everything seemed so fascinating.. removing our shoes and sitting on the tatami floor, the waiting staff who spoke no English, chopsticks, the tea strainer, and of course tempura along with three different kinds of salts, sauces, two types of pickled radish, tea and sake.
