It might come as a surprise to some, but vegetarian/vegan ingredients, dishes and restaurants can be quite difficult to find in Japan. They do exist, but with the abundance of products and restaurants offering mainly meat or seafood, they are very rare. Quite often the so called ‘vegetable’ dishes also actually contain meat in some form, like thin strips of ham mixed in with salad.
Historically Japan has been mainly a vegetarian/pescaterian country, as meat eating was banned from the 6th century as a part of Buddhist and Shinto religions. Game was eaten in the mountain areas by professional hunters. It was actually “thanks” to the Western people, that meat eating started to gain popularity in Japan, not that long ago: After the Meiji Restoration in 1867, the new Emperor staged a New Year’s feast in 1872 designed to embrace Western values. The feast had an European theme and for the first time in over a thousand years, meat was publicly eaten in Japan. A part of me still hopes the Meiji Restoration never happened, so that I could’ve experienced Edo as it was..
Me and Koi are mainly ‘pescaterian’, i.e. we love seafood, but don’t really eat red meat of chicken. For me, the reason lies within the unethical mass production and poor animal welfare. I do eat game on some rare occasions for example, as to in my opinion, it has had a good, free, natural life.
I would like to have some variety in the dishes we cook, and therefore wanted to buy some soy meat and couscous for example. It’s been a small hunt, but I recently found a chain of stores selling veggie&natural ingredients: Natural House. I visited one of their shops in Shimo-Kitazawa and bought my soy meat, both as granules, and as strips. It is more expensive than in Finland for example, but in relation to meat prices, I reckon it’s reasonable. Works fine too!
I have also found online shops selling vegetarian and organic food products, and finally decided to try one of them out: Tengu. Other option I was considering is Yoyo Market. The reason I picked Tengu though was that they are also selling my dear, dear, black gold – Finnish black liquorice!! So a few boxes of this addictive black treat were the first things I placed in my virtual shopping cart. Liquorice is even harder to find than soy granules – it’s virtually impossible. Liquorice and Japanese tastebuds just don’t meet. Other things I got were whole wheat flour (also difficult to find, as Japanese flour tends to be very fine, and also very white), whole wheat pita breads, couscous, and some organic whole wheat pasta. The most expensive items were my precious liquorice boxes, but I definitely think it was well worth it. Other than that, I think their prices are quite reasonable, depending on the product. When your order is over 5250 yen, they deliver for free in the Kanto area. I got mine delivered in a couple of days, straight to my door.
On Saturday night we decided to try some of these goods out and have some filled pita breads. We made our own fresh guacamole (heavenly!), bought some fresh ebi (prawns) from the local fish monger, and made a “chicken” filling from the soy strips. Enjoyed these with some small brewery beers, that actually go well with the veggie theme. I love the Buddha bottle, and I reckon it will find a place on our window sill.
Bura Bura Chipi - ぶらぶらチッぴ 