Chef's V, Marunouchi

For our last evening in Japan, we went to the rather cool 36 storey Marunouchi building near Tokyo station in the business district. It has a wide selection of restaurants. We didn't go to any of the really fancy (and non-vegetarian friendly) restaurants on the top couple of floors; we were originally planning to go to Fujino tofu restaurant on the 6th floor after seeing it recommended (when it was at a different location), but on enquiring at the front the host apologetically told us that much of the food has fish broth in! Boo! Perhaps it has changed a bit since it moved location?

So we wandered around and on the 5th floor stumbled upon a place called Chef's V - 'Vegetable Dining & Wining', with boxes of vegetables outside (good sign!) and a more veggie-friendly menu.



Sorry about the blurry photo below! This is a map displaying where their produce came from in the country, cool! I think the restaurant's selling point is fresh vegetables and other ingredients.



We started off with cute mini-potatoes, our only experience with the 'amuse-bouche' that we didn't actually order but did get charged for, which we saw a few blogs complaining about at other places. In this case they were good enough that we didn't mind. I think they were boiled and lightly seasoned, so you taste the natural flavour and freshness.



We weren't really hungry, so we got a selection of different things to share and try. Colourful vegetables salad rolls (or something like that)/ 彩り野菜のサラダロール (¥500) were an interesting twist on sushi/Vietnamese summer roll concept and the peanut dressing went very well.



Also we had smooth smoked tofu/なめらかスモーク豆腐 (¥300) , which was produced in-house/made their own (燻製 -自家製 ). It had a mild smoked taste, with that a dab of the yellow sauce (not quite sure what that was). I'm generally a fan of smoked flavour food, so was happy to try smoked fresh tofu!



We also had some delicious fried avocado/アボカドフライ ((¥400). The frying was very light, rather like when tempura is done correctly, not this heavy batter you get with some of the so-called tempura you get outside Japan. Finally we got this 'hot cocotte cooking' - mozzerella and tomatos with bread and olive oil/モッツァレラチーズとトマトとバジルのオリーブオイル焼き (¥650) cooked in a cocotte dish, which was slightly heavy but very tasty.



For somewhere we hadn't been intending to go to this was a really great find, with some cool dishes and an emphasis on fresh vegetables. There were a couple other pasta dishes looked like they should be suitable for vegetarians and would be more substantial if we were more hungry. The food was very well prepared, and the restaurant didn't seem to be that expensive for its location and being in a business district, so overall a pleasant surprise for an accidental vegetarian find!


Chef's V
2-4-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-6390 (5F)
〒100-6390 東京都千代田区丸の内2-4-1 丸ビル5F
Tel: 03-5288-9005

Denny's Japan, Ikebukuro

On our last full day in Japan we met up with a friend to go to karaoke, and beforehand went to get lunch. American readers may be familiar with Denny's as it is a popular place to go at 3am in the morning when there is nothing else open and you are not that choosy about the quality of the food/grease in the small hours! We were reassured by our friend that the Japanese version it is quite different. Apparently the Japanese Denny's are owned by the same company as Seven-Eleven, great conbini (again better than the American version) and one of the few places you can use your non-Japanese debit cards to take out cash. There was a very long queue stretching outside the door of the place and although after a while we did get to sit down while we waited for a table to be free, we did begin to wonder if it was ever going to happen.

Once we eventually got sat down, we got some brightly coloured drinks (yep, the melon soda again and some pinku lemonade). We got free refills, but have just been informed by our friend that they have just stopped doing so as of June, boo!



The menu didn't have an extensive range of vegetarian options but there was enough to get things we were happy with. There was no English menu, at least we weren't offered any, but there were nice pictures, so even if you don't read any Japanese it's easy enough to figure out the menu. IF and I got a salad to share and each had a pasta dish.



Like most items on menu, this seemingly 'western' dish showed its Japanese twist. The salad included Asian mushrooms and a light dressing, not a creamy one. It wasn't that big, but tasted decent enough.




The spaghetti with tomato sauce and aubergines was ok. It wasn't anything too special, but it did the job, definitely better quality food than American Denny's. Our friend had her favourite omelette rice (omu-rice オムライス) , another Japanese western creation that I wouldn't mind trying, but unfortunately it came with meat so I only got to try a small bite of it, which was nice. Guess will just have to try making it at home!




The desserts were definitely the winner here, and most definitely in a different class compares to American Denny's! The selections were very impressive! They looked great (as seen in the photo above) and tasted just as nice too!

The prices were quite reasonable (most main dishes were from ¥500-800; steak type entrees were more), though the portions were smaller than US standards, so maybe not so 'dirt cheap' like the American counterpart. They also change their menu quite a bit according to the seasons (the summer menu online now looks a bit different from the one we saw in January). It doesn't have the most amazing choices for vegetarians, so I'd say it's an OK choice for lunch or if you are not too hungry, or only want lots of sweets!


Denny's (池袋東口店/ Ikebukuro east exit branch)
〒170-0013　東京都豊島区東池袋１−１３−６ (2F)
Tel: 03-5950-9351

R Burger - Roppongi

We had heard of a few different Japanese burger chains before going, including of course MOS Burger that we tried. On continuing our Roppongi exploration we managed to stumble across one which we hadn't read anything about, and which had some vegetarian options too! Near the famously rowdy Roppongi crossing was R Burger.



This place had all of the burgers in different-looking buns that are quite far away from a western burger. We ordered a set meal (￥750) that came with Steamed-Bun Sandwich with Avocado (アボカド蒸しサンド) - steamed five-grain Chinese style buns with avocado, tomato, cottage cheese, mixed salad and mayo sauce. The menu entry on their website for this one actually says 'ベジタリアンでもOKです' - OK for vegetarians! The fluffy buns were quite nice though the sandwich as a whole tasted quite salady - not as good as the MOS rice burger though not bad, healthy for sure and certainly quite interesting to look at! The set included a drink and french fries, but we paid an extra ￥70 to upgrade the fries to tofu nuggets (豆腐ナゲット). Tofu nugget is an excellent concept, and they were as great as we hoped. The portions were not too big, but not a bad price for what we got.



Looking at the menu online it also offers 'green stick salads' (salad wrapped Vietnamese summer roll style) as well as tofu cake (as in sponge cake!), so definitely one of the most vegetarian friendly fast food places. There are also 2 other branches in Tokyo area (Ginza and Hachiōji), and interestingly 2 additional branches in Bangkok. If you want healthier, and certainly more interestingly and refined fast food, you should check out R Burger!


R Burger - Roppongi Branch
港区六本木4-9-8 リラビル1F
TEL ： 03-6805-3119

Koots Green Tea - Roppongi

Tonight we set out to look at the some of the cool new buildings and the famous nightlife in the Roppongi district. After our huge lunch, we figured we didn't need a big meal and would just grab whatever looked good along the way. We started out at Tokyo Midtown, a 6-buidling (including the tallest building in Tokyo) mixed-use development that opened in 2007. It houses a number of fancy shops and restaurants, but we decided to get something cheap and small in the Plaza/B1F level to exercise some money saving measures when coming near the end of our trip/ assaults on our bank accounts. We figured that most of the fancy stuff would not have been vegetarian anyway!

We decided to give Koots Green Tea a try because it has something a bit more substantial than Starbucks or cakes on offer, and their menu with English in front of the shop made it easier as well.



I guess they get quite a lot of foreign visitors at Tokyo Midtown, since a number of international companies like Xerox and Cisco have their offices in this building, and the server spoke some English. We ordered some onigiri (around ¥200 each and much larger than you get for a similar price in the UK) and were told we had to wait a few minutes for them.



From right to left, the onigiri were perilla and hijiki, green perilla and leaf mustard, and edam and olive. All were good but it was the edam and olive was the best and most interesting, with slightly melted cheese working surprisingly well with the rice. Definitely worth the (short) wait and not something you're likely to get anywhere else than Japan.

We also had ice tea and a green tea cream an-mitsu, green tea soft cream with red beans (¥790 as a 'dessert set' together).




Tasty but we had better green tea parfaits! The place was not somewhere you would go and sit to eat for too long but for a quick stop and some interesting onigiri it might be worth a go if you are in the area and want some comparatively cheap eats.


Koots Green Tea (Tokyo Midtown branch)
東京都港区赤坂9-7-2 B-B101
TEL： 03-5413-7131

Chien-Fu

After visiting the magnificent Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, located in the western side of the greater Tokyo area, we went for lunch somewhere that was further west from the centre of the city. The Granduo department store in Tachikawa (立川), which was right next to the JR rail station, has a 'China Street' on the 7th floor that houses a number of restaurants that serves various Chinese regional cuisines. We were there for Chien-Fu (健福), a Taiwanese vegetarian restaurant. Chien-Fu also follows the same buddhist vegetarian principles as was at It's Vegetable!, so the food here did not contain strong-smelling plants such as garlic, onion and leek. The name of the restaurant means something like good health and good fortune.



Yes, they had an even larger number of food models outside than most places! Less need to spend time studying since everything was vegetarian. Inside the restaurant looked really nice. They had backlit pictures of vegetables up on the wall (you can sort of see them in the middle of the photo above) which were quite arty and cool.

They had rather large menu, with a range of starters/side dishes on offer. Among these were very nicely pan-fried vegetable dumplings and pan-fried turnip cakes (大根もち). You could also get steamed turnip cakes at Chinese dim sum restaurants, but pan-frying gives a crispy exterior which is better in my opinion. Most of the turnip cakes in normal Chinese restaurants come with ham and dry shrimp, so we took advantage of the opportunity to indugle ourselves! We are dumpling fans, so we got some pan-fried dumplings (焼餃子) as well.



And for good measure, we had to get the boiled dumplings (水餃子) too! Boiled dumplings are appreciated differently because this way you could taste the freshness of the dough and ingredients and juicy-ness of the whole dumpling. Ihascupcake couldn't resist the range of deep fried starters on offer; rather than going for the usually easily available veg spring rolls, we picked the crunchy deep fried veggie 'prawns' (海老風フライ). They were very tasty, the texture of the 'prawns' were rather realistic, and they went well with the ketchup type sauce provided.



There were so many different noodles, rice dishes, main entree dishes to choose from (and all vegetarian!!) that it was slightly overwhelming. We both decided to go for noodles, maybe to compensate for the lack of noodles during this trip, since most places did not have meat-free broth. Ihascupcake went for taami/danzi noodles (担仔麺), a humble siganture dish from Tainan (southern Taiwan). This vegetarian version contained a mixture of fake pork, beansprouts and chinese vegetables. It was lovely though in a sublte, home cooking sort of way.



I had braised aubergine and noodles (麻茄魯麺). It was very saucy, and the aubergine was delicious.



All of this came to ¥3,790. Great value for a very wide choice of great tasting vegetarian food! The place wasn't packed when we went but we probably arrived towards the end of lunch time; there were quite a few customers that came and went during our stay, and most of them seemed middle age. The staff were friendly; we chatted with a couple of them in a combination of languages. The young man at the front counter spoke very good English; he explained to us that he was the only Japanese member of staff there, so he was trying to learn a bit of Mandarin.

Tachikawa is a bit away from central Tokyo, but if you are already in west side of Tokyo, an express train on the JR Chūō Line can get you there relatively quickly. There is another branch of Chien-Fu in Kunitachi (国立市), also in western greater Tokyo, but I think only the local train stops there and it worked out easier for us to get to the branch that was further out west from Mitaka. For those who don't have time to venture outside central Tokyo, we found out that Chien-Fu also has a food counter inside Matsuzakaya (松坂屋) department store in Ginza on the food floor at B1F. There is an additional branch in Iga city in the Kansai region in western Japan.


健福 Chien-Fu
Granduo bldg. 7F, 3-2-1 Shibasaki-cho,Tachikawa, Tokyo
東京都立川市柴崎町3-2-1グランデュオ立川7F
TEL: 042-540-2296

Japanese street crepes

We got back Tokyo this evening on Shinkensan. We had a vague plan for the evening but we changed our minds kind of last minute. So somehow we ended up in Ikebukuro, and by the time we were trying to find something we eat, the shops and restaurants in shopping/entertainment/hotel megaplex Sunshine City were closing (might have been interesting to visit Ice Cream City in Namja Town, one of these Japanese food 'theme park' type place where you could find all sorts of ice-cream/soft serve type creations).

Since we already had quite a sizable lunch in Osaka, we decided to just grab some Japanese street crepes at the Crazy Crepes stall next to the Sega Aracde. As the location of the stall suggests, Japanese street crepes are popular with young people. It's very causal and cheap food that you might eat while standing or walking on the street. Some of you might have managed to try this lovely Japanese interpretion outside Japan, as you can find them in San Francisco, Melbourne or Vancouver. I think the main difference between Japanese and French crepes are the toppings, but also Japanese crepes perhaps have slightly less egg?

Most of the selections at this 'Atlanta Crazy Crepes' were with sweet and cold toppings, but there were also a few savory toppings (tuna, egg salad, teriyaki chicken - the most bizaare combo was cabonara teriyaki chicken!) and also a few combos with chocolate or custard cream served hot. Depends on toppings, they were around ¥400 each. I got one with strawberries, and IF got a chocolate one. They were both quite yummy, but the downside was there was no place to sit down and we weren't too sure if we were allowed to go into the arcade with the crepes! Depends on the type of crepe (how much cream it has!) you get, I'd say it's definitely enough for a snack or light lunch.

If you visit Harajuku in Tokyo, you would see the two famous crepe stands on Takeshita Dori, Marion Crepes and Angels Hearts (which are right across from each other). We didn't manage to try them, but at least I managed to take a photo of what was on offer at Angels Hearts. Oh well, there is always next time!

Hanamaru, Shibuya

As far as fast, simple and cheap meals go, the most impressive place we found was Hanamaru. We would have liked to have had more udon or ramen noodles in Japan, but it's difficult to find anywhere that doesn't cook them in meat/fish broth of some kind. A bit of digging around the internet revealed that this nationwide udon chain offers an option of dry udon that didn't come with broth, and the particular branch we went to was at basement level in Shibuya (near a McDonalds).



As the above instructs, you take a tray, pick from some pre-prepared sides and order your noodles from a counter, which are then freshly prepared. You can choose from quite a few types in three different sizes and warm or cold. There were some more elaborate options such as bukkake (ぶっかけ) with lemon and egg but we went for the shoyu (しょうゆ) option warm, with just soy sauce and some green onions and radish. Really, that was enough as the noodles were delicious, firm and fresh.



We got the above with (from back to front) cold tofu, inari sushi and a couple of pieces of vegetable tempura. None of those disappointed either, but the most amazing thing was that everything in the picture came to less than ¥1000! Also you could also get unlimited free tea (and water) from the machine! We definitely don't have anything that cheap and delicious (and healthy!) in the UK. The clientele were mostly young people - definitely a good place for those on a limited budget!

東京都渋谷区宇田川町28-2ニュー渋谷ビルB1
Tel: 03-5784-3633

Good Honest Grub

The next lunch/brunch was at Good Honest Grub, in Shibuya-ku about halfway between Shibuya and Ebisu stations. As the name suggested, it specialises in fairly straightforward Western food. We were taken there by an American friend, and the restaurant is apparently well known to Westerners and vegetarians in Tokyo. Can't really tell you exactly how to get there because we took a taxi from Shinagawa station to somewhere near there. (When we left we realised it was quite near a main road 明治通り (near the post office), but it's still a bit hidden in some residential streets.) We were told that it used to be at a different location and always packed. Maybe because the current location is more difficult to find, it wasn't so packed when we arrived.

Our waitress, who spoke English, gave us English menus, and it was a welcome change that we actually had a few options to choose from! Our friend had his heart set on the egg benedict, and we decided to try something different.



IF had vegetable lasagne which was good - decent filling of vegetables (including courgettes which is always a positive) just enough cheese and sauce without being overpowering, and a generous portion complete with garlic bread.



I chose the French Toast because I was in the mood for some fruit and something sweet. This was very nicely made and fresh tasting. As good as it looked in this photo! A chai tea I had also went down well with the French Toast.

The prices weren't cheap (over ￥1000 per course), but you could see the effort and care being put into the cooking so it was worth it (ok in our case very worth it because our friend kindly treated us!). I wouldn't say as a Westerner it is a must visit restaurant just because the type of food is easy to get at home, but if you are after something fresh and healthy with more Western/vegetarian options it is worth considering!

2-20-8 Shibuya-ku Higashi Tokyo
東京都渋谷区東2-20-8
Tel : 03-3797-9877

Tabasa Pasta Viking

Our second Viking buffet experience (after It's Vegetable) was at Tabasa at the bottom of the hill end of Takeshita-dori in Harajuku. The plastic models give a good idea of what was on offer; there were a couple of suitable salad & pasta dishes and we were lucky enough that there was also mushroom/tomato pizza out for most of the time we were there. The different prices seen in the photo depended on whether you were a man (¥1155) or woman (¥1050), although I'm not completely sure I ate that much more to justify the extra. There was also an option including all you can drink beer, but we thought it was a bit pricey and wouldn't get our money worth.

The highlight was definitely the fact that desserts were also on an all you can eat basis (there was a one hour time limit for everything) - green tea ice cream and red bean pancakes were enough to make me wish I left more room for them.



Overall all it was an alright experience, a good place to avoid the pouring rain since we didn't feel like walking around and getting more wet! It was also slightly amusing with all the American hip-hop/rap memorabilia decorating the restaurant - we had a video screen showing the same types of videos right above us on the wall and huge Eminem and 50 Cent posters behind us.


Tabasa
B1F, 1-8-3 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
東京都渋谷区神宮前1-8-3 石川ビルB1F
Tel: 03-3404-3740.

You'll never go hungry

We know being vegetarians can be a bit tricky in Japan and take a bit of extra effort sometimes, but the truth is with so many food counters, shops and restaurants everywhere, especially in big cities like Tokyo, one can't really go hungry! I thought we should show you the miscellaneous snacks, small treats and lighter meals we've had while in Tokyo.

Starting from our Thursday 'lunch' - we figured we would just have something simple and quick because we wanted to go back to some shops in Shinjuku before meeting a friend somewhere else. First, we found this 'New York style' bagel stand inside Shinjuku station. I'm not sure if they have green tea and white chocolate bagels in NYC, but we couldn't resist trying. The texture was a bit different, but it was a good sweet snack.



We tried to find a spot for some quick lunch but didn't find anything too exciting or offered too many options in the food alley type place inside the station, so we decided to go check out the food hall in Odakyu department store (小田急百貨店). Anyone that has been to any Japanese department store food hall would know how amazing they are (sorry Selfridges food hall just doesn't compare). We found the daily dish/bento (惣菜・弁当) section and thought we should be able to find a few things there. This onigiri counter 味の梅ばち(something about taste of plum) caught our attention because we thought we should be able to get some vegetarian onigiri. I showed the lady behind the counter our 'no meat, no seafood' writing, and she helpful gave me the 'X' singal with her arms when I pointed at a couple items that probably contained fish. In the end, we got some inari sushi, big soy sauce & dry seaweed onigiri, and three smaller onigiri with plum, wakame and hijiki (brown sea vegetable). It's a shame that there was nowhere to sit at the food hall (ended up sitting on a bench on the train platform because we were early for our train), but they were all very tasty, especially the plum one, and pretty cheap.

Sorry for the blurry picture!



After we reached our destination and met a friend in Shimokitazawa, we went to the Deli and Baking co. for tea and sweet treats. It was very welcome to get out of the rain to somewhere homely and welcoming and have some tea - warm on this occasion although cold milk tea (ミルクティ) from vending machines was also surprisingly refreshing once you get past the initial weirdness of its cold and sweetness.

Pictured below: caramel cheesecake, strawberry cheesecake and oreo muffin. Each was ¥900 for a set including the drink, but totally worth it, although the oreo muffin was perhaps a little too much chocolate to take in one go. The caramel cheescake even came with edible ball bearings. Desserts are definitely a very big deal in Japan, often far more eleborate and nicely presented than these as well as not as sweet as Western sweets.



Later on we had bubble tea in Pearl Lady in Harajuku (off Takeshita-dori). For those of you unfamiliar with this Taiwanese speciality (also known as pearl tea), it is cold milk tea (or fruit flavoured milk) with balls of tapioca at the bottom that one sucks through a very wide straw. Fun as well as tasty! The ones we had (green tea and milk tea, below) came without the avalanche of ice that sometimes takes up half the cup, so that was good.



Next on our snack tour, some matcha dorayaki (two small pancake-like patties with sweet red bean paste filling) from Family Mart, one of the many konbinis (コンビニ, convenience store) that offer some much better snack food than you might find in equivalents in the west. Not sure about the 'home made' claim on the bag but the one at the top left is more true.



More sweet snacks at Mister Donut in Akihabara - a custard and whipped cream (カスタード＆ホイップ) filled donut, pictured with hot chocolate. Even the one of us who is not usually much of a fan of custard liked this combination, although the appeal of Mister Donut was more in its convenient location and price (¥115 for the donut) than particular amazing food or drinks. Not a bad place for a pit stop though.



And finally, some manjū (饅頭, made from flour/rice/buckwheat read bean paste filling) souvenir that we didn't actually eat but are worth posting for the novelty factor anyway, spotted on the stalls on Nakamise-Dori, where you can find all your Japanese souvenirs, outside Senso-Ji temple in Asakusa. Now I wish I'd bought some.

Yakitori Alley, Yurakucho

Yakitori (焼き鳥) actually literally means 'burnt bird' so might seem a strange place to be looking for vegetarian food, but since it essentially consists of things grilled on skewers there are lots of options! (some may not technically be yakitori but rather kushiyaki, but yakitori seems to be used quite generally).

On guidebook recommendation we decided to head to the Yurakucho 'yakitori alley', easily identified once nearby due to the smoke produced by the cooking. To ge there we walked alongside/underneath the Yamanote line from Yurakucho station towards Shimbashi. There were lots of other small restaurants on the way there. In the alley itself there are a few different places, not buildings as such but covered enough by the railway arches and plastic tarpaulin to avoid being completely exposed to the elements. Not sure what the one we chose was called but it was not too difficult to look at menus and found a suitable place. We seemed to be the only non-locals amongst plenty of happily drunk people, but menus in English were available.



We ordered quite a few skewers: shitake mushrooms, auburgine, green peppers and leek. We also had some sides of edamame, fried tofu and potato salad. The shitake was so good that we had to order more!

We didn't get drunk like other fellow diners (some even broke some dishes behind us!), but we did try some of the alcoholic drinks on the menu. We normally quite like the shochu sours when we go to Japanese restaurants, so we got one green tea shochu and one lime shochu. As much as we like most things green tea flavoured, don't think green tea and shochu made a good combo, even though it looked kinda cool. It had a rather strange bitter taste, so don't really recommend this.



Each order (2 skewers) were under ¥200, so the meal was very yummy and cheap! It's not fancy eating, but definitely a great authentic local experience. There was obviously a bit of a smell of grilled meat at times but wasn't really off putting for us; I think the close proximity of tobacco smoke was more troublesome as we are used to smoke free restaurants in London! Think we read it somewhere that the stalls don't open during the day, so come for an evening meal or some late night drinking and yummy grilled things on sticks.


Yurakcuho Yakitori Alley
Under JR train line near Hibiya station, 2-1-10 Yurakucho, Chioyda-ku Tokyo

It's Vegetable!

Quite possibly the best named restaurant that we visited, It's Vegetable (イッツベジタブル) is a simple short walk from Kinshicho station (go out the north exit and follow along the train line to the right). It's not the most central location, but it was quite near the Edo Tokyo Museum (Ryogoku Station), which we highly recommend.

It's Vegetable serves Taiwanese Buddhist vegetarian cuisine (台湾素食), which means not only no meat or fish but also no dairy and no garlic or onions. Buffet restaurants are quite common in Japan, going under the inititally puzzling name of Viking (バイキング, 'baikingu') style. It's Vegetable was unusual in not being all-you-can-eat but instead offering fixed size plastic trays of different sizes. Still a generous meal, particularly for lunch, though.



The friendly man at the restaurant spoke good amount of English and explained to us that we could choose the size of tray (we got the medium size that costed ¥850 each) and fill them up once. He also gave us brief descriptions of the food available at the buffet. There were various different kinds of vegetables, tofu and fake meats in sauce, as well as balls of konyakku (the jelly looking things in the middle right in the pic), fried vegetables and a couple of different choices of rice including more healthy brown rice. There was also tea and vegetable soup included (without having to fit them in the tray!). The food was pretty good for buffets, and we got to try out different things but the down side was you couldn't go back to get more (unless you come back for lunch again)! The price seems quite reasonable for what we got.



The man also told us the owner was from Taiwan, but she was busy talking on the phone as we were leaving, so we didn't get to speak to her and thank her for the nice cooking. We also saw some health food products being sold at the cash register. We'd happy to go back to It's Vegetable next time we're in Tokyo.


It's Vegetable!
4-1-9 Kinshi, Sumida-ku, Tokyo
東京都墨田区錦糸4丁目1-9
Phone & Fax 03-3625-1245

MOS Burger

Another day, another while spent wandering in search of a dinner location. Key lesson was probably that while Seven Elevens, Family Marts and other konbinis (コンビニ, i.e. convenience store) make for useful markers on a map once you're close, there are far too many of them to use before that. Although the post code was consistently signed, they were somewhat useful. Anyway, after a relatively short time we successfully found the Shimbashi branch of Mos Burger (モスバーガー) for some Japanese style fast food.



Not every branch has rice burgers, apparently, but we checked the website to make sure before going. We ordered one burger plus onion rings & fries and drink set (¥630), and one burger with salad and drink set (¥630). The burgers and accompanying fries and salad (with Japanese style dressing) were not particularly large to Western standards, but while the sadly non-crunchy fries were not especially to my taste, the burger itself was excellent.



The kanpira (きんぴら) burgers we tried consist of lightly stir-fried vegetables and seaweed for filling with the key point being the delicious tightly packed rice patties, just slightly crunchy on the outside, which could make a good snack on their own (like grilled onigiri) and are more filling than the small size suggested.

Note also the bright green melon soda in the first pic, which was rather tasty by unnaturally coloured drink standards and we may come across again elsewhere!


Mos Burger モスバーガー新橋二丁目店
〒105-0004東京都港区新橋2-12-16明和ビル1階
Phone 03-3507-0065

Chaya Macrobiotic Restaurant (Shinjuku)

After a much needed night of sleep, we were ready for Tokyo! We spent the morning in various shops and department stores in Shinjuku. Luckily, our lunch spot was much easier to find as we knew it was inside the Isetan Department Store, which was near were we were shopping and about a 5-10 minute walk from the busy Shinjuku JR/Subway station.



We got up to 7F via the lift, which like many things in Japan was very organised. A uniformed lift attendant carefully instructed all the lift passagers what was on every floor, but of course that required an understanding what she was saying. Part of the 7th floor was the 'Restaurant Street - Eat Paradise', and Chaya Macrobi (チャヤマクロビ) was easy enough to find among other restaurants. We saw a few people sitting the chaired that were neatly placed outside Chaya, so we figured that was the queue and sat down. Soon after, a man came out and asked how many was in the party and gave us menus. We took a look at the menu and tried to decipher what was on offer, but it was only about 5 minutes later we got led inside for a table by the window.

We did find out from our pre-trip internet search that Chaya is a vegetarian friendly macrobiotic restaurant that served vegetarian and vegan food along with meat and fish dishes. So after our cheese-kimchee-pancake-with-hidden-meat encounter last night, the first thing I did after we sat down was showing our waiter my 'eat no meat and no seafood (肉と魚を食べません)' phrase that was written in my notebook. He assured us that the lunch set was ok. We were glad to know that we could expect a decent vegetarian meal, so we got to relax a bit and enjoyed the nice atmosphere while we waited for our food. Chaya was a western style restaurant, but I guess maybe not everything there was strictly western. As the name suggested, it was supposed to be macrobiotic, so it served healthy, fresh and seasonally food without any unnatural seasoning or addictives. To be honest, we didn't know much about macrobiotic diets; we only decided to come here because we read that there was a decent vegetarian selections there and the location would be easy to find. Most customers were women, but there were 2-3 men eating there while we were there, something that seemed to be a common ocurrance at other vegetarian/health type restaurants in Japan from what we read in reviews.

Anyway, the lunch set came after a short wait. It consisted of a small cup of vegetable soup, vegetable curry served with brown rice, a good portion of salad and a small side of Asian vegetables (mushrooms and something else we couldn't quite work out what it was, nice nevertheless!). The curry wasn't the normal Japanese curry, but it wasn't really like Indian curry either; however, the vegetable and beans curry was very nice, especially with the brown rice.





We didn't order any drinks with our meals, but the waiters were very diligent in keeping our water glasses filled. The lunch set did come with a drink after the food, and we both chose tea, as in western tea (it's some sort of black tea but in Asia it's known as 'red tea (紅茶)' .




Overall, it was a pleasing meal. The food did not wow us but was certainly very satisfying as well as fresh and healthy. The portions were pretty good (we didn't need to try their vegan desserts), and the service was attentative. Each set was ¥2,100, which wasn't cheap but seemed good value for what we got.


Chaya Macrobi Isetan Shinjuku
7F Isetan Shinjuku 3-14-1, Shinjuku, Tokyo
東京都新宿区新宿３丁目１４−１
Phone 03-3358-0399

Norubune

On arriving in Tokyo, and heading for the bright lights of Shibuya, we spent at least a jetlagged hour trying to find Nagi Shokudo (なぎ食堂), only to eventually discover from their neighbours that it was closed for the holidays and had helpfully taken down any sign of its existence.

So our first meal was supplied by an unplanned trip to a Korean restaurant in the basement level (B2F) of Seibu department store - Norubune (ノルブネ).

Korean food is generally a good bet for vegetarian options and the staples of pickled vegetables and bibimbap (big bowl of rice, vegetables, egg and hot sauce) were available as hoped. The pickled vegetables (spinach, bracken leaf, some other things) were nicely arranged and tasty. The bibimbap disappointingly wasn't served in a hot stone bowl but did the trick and the very sour lemon soda was a plus. It all worked out at slightly more expensive than downscale Korean places in London, but not by much (¥4,704).

Less positively we ordered a kimchi pancake with cheese only to find that it came with meat as well - this was the only time this happened on the trip as after our unsuccessful search tiredness had very definitely set in by this point and we didn't go to the effort to gain assurance this wouldn't be the case. A pre-written note explaining that we eat no fish and meat and some enquiries worked out fine everywhere else and didn't seem to get us too many weird looks.






Norubune ノルブネ 渋谷SEIBU店
〒150-0042渋谷区宇田川町21-1 西武百貨店A館B2
Phone & Fax 03-5784-1788