sonalkishore

Hello, My husband and I are going to Japan and I am very excited. Seeing posts by fellow Fodorians, I saw somewhere that you order on a machine, pay and then enter the restaurant. Everything in that photo was either picture or in Japanese. Now I am worried, how would I specify what I can eat and can not.
My itinerary is as follows:
Tokyo 2+ days
Mt. Fuji 1 day
Takayama 2 days
Kanazawa 2 days
Kyoto 2 days
Nara one day
Osaka 2 days
Any restaurant recommendations are appreciated along with any tip.
Thank you.

someotherguy

A lot depends on how strict you are. Are you ok if there's some fish stock in your noodle dish? If so, then just learn the basic vocabulary (yasai, niku, sakana, tomago, tabemasu/tabemasen), don't worry about grammar, and use more or less any restaurant.

Google translate can read menus, and works offline if you download the data file beforehand.

If you are more strict, put the city into https://www.happycow.net and choose a suitable restaurant

If you are really strict, then I suggest watching youtube info videos. This one seems good:
They mention difficulty finding a vegetarian restaurantt in Kushimoto. I couldn't even find one with a non-smoking section!

​​​​​​https://adumbrate.org/pics/Kumanokod...ikatsuura.html

curiousgeo

In Kyoto one of the famous cooking styles is shojin ryori or monks fare. There are quite a number of such restaurants around the city. One of them, Ajiro was awarded a Michelin star. Yudofu restaurants are also popular in Kyoto with tofu as the primary dish. Veg Out is a vegan restaurant set near the Kamogawa River.

Oden found everywhere may work. Ingredients are simmered in dashi stock and one can pick and choose what to eat though things such as eggs and fish cake are also cooked along with the vegetables. My son’s girlfriend who is vegetarian enjoyed the meals in Japan. It took a bit of research but she was fine and ate well.

sonalkishore

Thank you everyone for your reply.
We do not eat fish, but eggs and dairy are fine.
Recently in my visit to Latin America, Happy Cow was not updated. All the restaurants they listed were closed during pandemic.
Dashi as suggested is also questionable. Dashi can be made with fish, like Niboshi dashi. Appreciate other suggestions.

curiousgeo

Not all dashi uses katsuo (dried fish), Shojin ryori uses dashi stock made from konbu. Looks like my earlier edit didn’t take, I tried to add Veg Out in Kyoto, a vegan restaurant overlooking the Kamogawa River.

Another option might be Kintame, a tsukemono shop (Japanese pickles) that serve ochazuke (tea, rice and pickles) for lunch. Very Kyoto, very Japanese.

shelemm

Dashi made with fish is ubiquitous. It is a very basic flavor that is used in many dishes and hard to avoid in Japanese cuisine.

The places you saw with a vending machine are ramen-ya. They typically make one kind of ramen with the only choices being if you want extra noodles or other extras. You will not be able to eat at those places, but they are easily avoided.

You will need to find places that serve food with kombu dashi:

昆布だし

Tabelog is Japan's version of Yelp, but on steroids. Far more serious. You can try to use the English version and see how far you get, though the limitation will be the search function. Not sure you will be able to search for Vegetarian places or dishes. The Japanese version is better and has a better search function, but I don't know how adept you are with using a website in a foreign language. It's not really that hard to figure out. I don't know Japanese and I can navigate pretty well. Searching is a matter of cutting and pasting from a translator website like Bing Translator.

Good luck!

sonalkishore

Thank you everyone who replied. Your suggestions are helpful and give me much needed confidence.