The Visiting Vegetarian

Japan is not an easy place for a vegetarian as dashi (fish stock) is an intrinsic and ubiquitous part of the cuisine. A local person with knowledge of the dishes is invaluable when dining out.

Assuming you don't have that luxury I'll share my experiences in navigating through this environment and still eating interesting meals.

Sites
First thing to do is look at sites that identify vegetarian restaurants in Japan. I found several helpful ones:

• Bento.com covers Tokyo, Yokohama, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe and has detailed reviews and pictures.
• The Happy Cow has reviews from readers for restaurants around the world including many Japanese cities.
• Sunny Pages covers Tokyo restaurants of all types including vegetarian and ethnic foods.
  

Ethnic Cuisines


When at a loss for appropriate food look for Indian and Italian restaurants which always have vegetarian items on the menu. I had the interesting experience of revisiting Nara after 10 years and instead of frightening people with demands in broken Japanese for vegetarian food, I found a very pleasant place called Ragamala just off the main arcade. The restaurant is decorated with old album cover of Classical Indian musicians such as Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi Shankar.



Traditional Japanese Cuisines

In the Kansai region of Japan (Osaka-Kyoto) a variety of vegetarian cuisines using fresh local produce were developed in Buddhist Temples based on Chinese models. Shojin Ryori is a vegetarian multicourse meal with an amazing number of dishes served in elegant containers. I also like Yodufu, a hot pot of tofu and vegetables.



In Kyoto I found many temples have tea houses where vegetarian food is served, an excellent way to alleviate both spiritual and physical hunger. I really enjoyed Ryuan-ji where you can eat an excellent meal looking out over a centuries old garden.



As stated previously, the use of fish and sometimes meat by products is very common and should be expected in most soups and broths outside of temples.