vegan resources in Japan

Japan is rather vegan historically, meat being against the religion and dairy not existing until recently. Fish has always been consumed to some extent.

Buddhist monk food called "shojin ryori" is basically vegan and a traditional kind of cooking.

Recently, the Japanese diet has begun to mimic Western diets and more and more Japanese are relying on meats, dairy and junk food for their calories. The super-sized drinks haven't taken off in Japan yet, but a mega-sized Big Mac is the "new thing" in Japan these days.

Veganism isn't that big as a fad/trend and most healthy restaurants are closer to vegetarian than vegan.

See the IHT article on Vegan spots in Tokyo.

Tokyo

Restaurants and Cafes

• Crayon House - Omotesando - Famous bookstore, organic store and cafe/restaurant. A small world/community. Broad selection of organic food and a nice lunch buffet.
• Pure Cafe - A small and rather fashionable cafe attached to a natural cosmetics store. Small but nice menu. Portions are slightly small so maybe order extra side dishes. Cafe does not take reservations.
• Brown Rice Cafe Omotesando - Right across the street from Crayon House. Smaller, newer and fancier than Crayon House specializing in a broad range of drinks and teams as well as brown rice. Interesting menu featuring a veggie burger and curry rice.
• Fangsong café Akasaka - Small, organic/vegetarian café on a back street in Akasaka. Very good and fairly cheap. Web page in Japanese, map: [1]
• Vegan Healing Café Shibuya café review. Haven't tried it yet, but it looks promising.
• Govinda's Nakano. "Pure vegetarian restaurant non violence food—Our dishes doesn't any meat, fish, onion, garlic, alcohol and caffein."(sic)
• Monk's Foods in KichiJoji - This is not a vegetarian or vegan restaurant per se, but it's organic and macrobiotic and he only serves 3 options a day, one of which can be prepared vegan on request.

Stores

• der Akkord - A small but famous bakery for vegans, serving variety of breads, cakes and pies. Online-order available.

External Resources

• Tokyo Vegetarian Guide
• IHT Article on Tokyo Vegan places
• Tokyo on Vegetarian-Restaurants.com

This article is based on a GNU FDL Vegan Wikia article: Japan

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