Vegan in Japan: Tokyo Part Three

Day five in Tokyo and Nick and I headed out to explore Shimokitazawa, an area of Tokyo renowned for youth fashion and nightlife, but it my mind it will always be synonymous with French bakery Mirayne. This adorable little bakery is just a short walk from Yoyogiuehara station and aside from cows milk for drinks they are entirely vegan. This place was on the expensive side but I always like to support small business when I travel and because we hadn't found many portable treats yet we picked up quite a few things. The beautiful bakery case was bursting with goodies and we bought matcha cookies, a chocolate brownie, two bite sized muffins - one banana walnut, one jam filled and some crunchy pig shaped vanilla cookies.

We enjoyed all of our treats outside on the patio as there's no indoor seating.

The muffins were the perfect little breakfast treat and a we quickly followed them with a couple of the adorable pig shaped vanilla cookies Nick had picked out. The crunchy matcha coated cookies were enjoyable and had the benefit of having a long shelf life which was great as it was a while before we found sweet take-out treats again. The brownie was pretty gooey, a little fudgey and came with some vanilla icing which Nick enjoyed - I don't really believe icing belongs on a brownie!

Everything was so good that we actually went back in and picked out some strawberry cookies and a couple more muffins before heading on our way. I think the lady running the place thought we were a little crazy but she gave us some free carrot cake samples so I'm okay with that!

After missing out on DevaDeva Cafe on Ghibli Museum day I was determined to fit it in somewhere and so we headed over to explore Kichijoji, walk off our sweet breakfast, and enjoy some lunch. 

We loved the atmosphere at DevaDeva, everyone working there was super friendly and there was a really laid back vibe so we settled in for a long lunch. I don't usually order juice because I find the usual apple, orange, grapefruit options a little lacking but I can't resist a fun option like passionfruit.

I feel pretty strongly about burgers, if there's one on the menu I'll probably order it especially if it comes with some kind of fried potato. I went for the katsu burger and it was an excellent choice, great mock meaty burger, really flavourful sauce and a soft seeded bun. This lunch was spot on.

After a little deliberation over whether or not to order dessert we spotted this chocolate cake heading to another table and we were sold. We also decided there was no way we were sharing because we're both quite protective of our chocolate, a decision we both agreed was a good one after tasting this delicious cake.

I'm not often a fan of a raw base but this was spot on (read: not overwhelmingly coconutty) and the mousse-like cheesecake was perfect. The ganache on top and swirled on the plate made this a truly world class dessert.

After an afternoon nap (what? Exploring's tiring!) we headed out into the night to explore the bars of Golden Gai. Unsure if we'd be brave enough to pop into any of them we spotted a punk pub with a mohawked barman blasting The Ramones and decided to go for it. We had a super fun evening chatting with some Japanese locals and an American who was in town on business. I drank enough for both of us that night - Nick doesn't drink and these bars have only 3 - 7 seats each so I thought I'd better make sure we weren't wasting space at the bar! We slept in the next day and headed out for breakfast at around 12. This is where we got lost for the first time, unsurprisingly I wasn't on top form that day - if you know me well you'll know I need carbs to transform into a normal human on a good day let alone after a night of drinking so I somehow took us on a very roundabout route to the Biokira Cafe when I was really trying to get us to the (much closer) Bio Cafe. This is how we ended up having cake for breakfast instead of steamed buns! 

Biokura Cafe is actually a super swanky, super healthy cafe and part of a cooking school full of very well dressed Japanese people not hungover scruffy punks - we felt pretty outa place but once Nick saw the cake he made the executive decision to stick around.

The cheesecake and lemon tart were two of the best things we ate on the trip so I'm glad we stayed. The texture of the cheesecake was spot on and the lemon tart has just the right lemon / base / topping ratio. If we'd have been in the area again we'd have definitely headed here for more.

Cake and one of my emergency Clif bars was never going to keep me going for long so after a little explore of the market outside the UN University building we headed to one of our favourite lunch spots Hanada Rosso for a proper meal. We decided to skip our usual burger order and try something from the set lunch menu, I picked the Soy Meat Fritto with brown rice.

Nick chose the Kuruma-Hu Cutlet with bread.

Everything came with miso soup and salad and because we both feel pretty strongly about fried food this was an amazing lunch. Nick's cutlet was described on the menu as a "puffy doughnut shaped bread-like food made of dried wheat gluten", it was deep fried and mock-pork like and we both really enjoyed the rich hatcho-miso sauce it was served with. My deep fried soy meat was also delicious, the mayonnaise went with it well and I was glad I chose the brown rice side as I think this much batter plus bread could have even been a little much even for me.

After a long day of exploring the city we decided to head to Chidorigafuchi where the blossoms decorate the moats around Kitanomaru park. You can rent rowing boats here during the day but we wanted to check out the nighttime Hanami experience. My iPhone pictures really don't do it justice so you'll have to go there yourself one day.

Afterwards we were a pretty hungry and as most other veg friendly places seem to close early we headed to the heart of Shibuya to try Bio Cafe - the place I was trying to direct us to at breakfast time! I was wooed as soon as they set down an enormous basket of bread with olive oil for dipping, I love carbs and this was turning out to be a good day for them!

The carrot orange juice I ordered was like a slushy and I loved it! I clearly need to add crushed ice to more drinks at home. We finally got our hands on the steamed bun we'd been waiting all day for. These sweet barbecue mock meat filled dumplings are up there with my favourite ever foods and this one lived up to expectations.

Our mains were a little less of a win, Nick had a creamy soy based casserole...

...and I picked a mock meaty stew with brown rice.

Neither of these dishes were bad just a little bland and whilst I'd go back for snacks like the steamed bun I'd probably skip dinner. We did like that vegan options were clearly labelled on the menu and the bread really was excellent so if you've been let me know what you tried, maybe we just missed the great dishes.

One thing I wish we could have found a vegan version of, alongside matcha filled Oreo's and Kit Kat's, were these wonderfully cute ice creams. The real versions look just like the plastic versions down to the sweet pandas and perfect looking fruit. I told Nick that we should learn to veganise all of them, move to Japan, open an ice cream shop and wait for the vegans to flock to us! He is less certain that this is an excellent life plan.

The next morning it was time to head onwards on our journey and we headed to Shinjuku station to swap our JR voucher for a JR pass.

Despite arriving only a tiny bit later than planned at 9:05 rather than 9 when they opened the wait was long. I suspect that this had something to do with it being Monday but who knows. We waited around 40 minutes for the three groups in front of us to be processed but we felt bad for the 15 or so people who arrived shortly behind us as they must have had a much longer wait. I do not feel sorry for the woman who tried to shoulder barge her way in front of me in line, I hope she had to wait all day.

With our passes in hand we boarded the Shinkansen and headed for Nikko which is a story for another day.

Vegan in Japan: More Tokyo Adventures

Our Hanami experience on day one (read about it here!) left us eagerly awaiting more blossom related fun so we headed out to Ueno Park early the next morning. 

After a long walk made longer by our constant stopping to take pictures we arrived at our destination, Shinobazu pond. The guide book informed us that this was the place to hire a swan boat, and hire a swan boat we did! If you aren't into swans (Why? You monster!) you can also hire little pastel pedalos and more simple rowing boats. 

Obviously I had my heart set on a big pink swan!

We had so much fun pedalling ourselves around the lake, it was beautiful and occasionally we'd spot a big seagull perched upon the head of someone else's swan boat!

Tokyo's Loving Hut branch was the closest spot for lunch and we were excited to head somewhere we knew was entirely vegan. There were a few lunch specials to choose from and of course I went for the one with the most dumplings.

One dumpling was stuffed with sweet barbecued pulled pork and reminded me of the Cha Su Bao I tried at Lucky Creation in San Francisco and the other was veg filled. The mock meaty dumpling was my fave'. Obviously. The little ones at the back were filled with sticky rice and peas and were also quite delicious. My plate was filled with a sample of room temperature dishes including a tofu satay skewer, vermicelli noodle salad, crustless tofu quiche, summer rolls, fried tofu and a sweet and sour mock meat dish which was my favourite part of the meal.

I was also super surprised by how much I enjoyed the tea served with my lunch set. I'm a long time tea hater but this finally brought me around. Ridiculously one of my biggest worries about our trip to Japan was being forced by both social conventions and my own politeness to drink tea, of which I can hardly even begin to explain my hatred. But, as it turns out, I only hate hot tea! The milky tea so beloved by everyone else tastes worse to me than drinking dishwater but cool refreshing flowery flavoured iced tea? Apparently I love it!

Nick ordered a mock fish and rice set that in it's true seafood form is a traditional Japanese dish, I wish I could remember the name. This is why I usually take a notebook with me to restaurants!

Overall our Loving Hut experience was positive, not the best food we had on our trip but definitely a great option either if you're at this side of the city or if your jet lagged self isn't feeling up to trying to ask questions about honey, egg or dairy products.

On the first leg of our trip we were based at the Hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku and late on our second day we realised that the Lima health food store was right behind the hotel! We headed there to grab snacks for the next days breakfast and thanks to the vegan card I had printed out (and laminated!) and their super helpful staff we were able to ascertain what was and wasn't vegan. We grabbed a pack of ganmodoki, tofu and veg balls...

...and a couple of doughnuts, one chocolate and one matcha.

These were great portable treats to start the day with although, word of warning, if you're used to American or even European baked goods you'll probably find these (and most other) Japanese cakes a little dryer that you're used to. And a whole lot less sweet. I really enjoyed this break from lavish amounts of buttercream frosting and I gained an appreciation for more delicately flavoured baked goods. The dryness is still an issue!

That evening we headed out to Ain Soph's Journey location for an early dinner and after getting off to an odd start (a woman shouted that they were closed and tried to shoo us away when we arrived!) we were eventually seated by someone who actually did work there and the service was a little on the slow side but perfectly decent for the rest of the evening.

We couldn't commit to one main dish so we just ordered a few things to share including the nachos, deep fried soya meat, the Sheese plate and the tofu omelette.

The nachos were definitely an odd choice in a Japanese restaurant but they were homemade, very lightly salted and delicious. I could have done with more salsa but I'm pretty sure it's imported and therefor expensive so I understood the small portion. The deep fried soy meat is up there with some of our favourite dishes from the whole trip, super juicy mock meat coated in perfectly crisp batter. It didn't even need a dipping sauce. The Sheese plate was interesting, I should have guessed by the name that it would be actual Sheese from right here in the British Isles but my jet lagged brain's not that quick. I love Sheese but when I ordered I was hoping for a Japanese take on vegan cheese nevertheless it was delicious and if you don't come from the land of Sheese it's a super cool option to have. The bread it was served with was fantastic (although for me the cheese to bread ratio was way off) and I adored the pesto. The omelette was not to my taste, I kinda hate ketchup and the combination of super soft tofu and tiny carrot pieces missed the mark for me.

We went to town with dessert and both ordered pancakes which come with rum and raisin ice cream, fruit, jam and whipped cream.

I usually hate whipped cream but this light fluffy rice whip style cream was delicious and I could have eaten a bowl full. The pancakes were fluffy and pillowy and the only part of the meal I was unsure of was the ice cream as rum & raisin is not a favourite flavour of mine, texture wise it was spot on though, creamy and ice crystal free.

I'd definitely recommend Ain Soph, we went back on our last night and ordered a mix of some of the same and some new things and really enjoyed that meal too.

The next morning we got up bright and early, munched on our breakfast snacks and headed to The Ghibli Museum. As a long-time Studio Ghibli fan this place was high on my list of reasons for wanting to visit Tokyo and it lived up to all of my expectations. If you'd like to visit you need to book tickets online around three months in advance, we picked ours up via JTB the company we also ordered our Japan rail passes through.

Once inside the museum cameras are banned and people respect the rule. It would be less of a magical experience if you'd seen a tonne of pictures all over the internet already and this way you aren't quite sure what to expect.

After our museum visit we had lunch at Hanada Rosso. If we'd planned it better this would have been a great time to eat at DevaDeva Cafe but unfortunately they're closed on Thursdays which is the day we'd picked for our visit. If you're a better forward planner than I am DevaDeva Cafe is just a short walk (around 1.5km) from the museum. Hanada Rosso turned out to be a wonderful choice for lunch though and we ended up eating there three or four times during our trip.

We both ordered the Teriyaki Burger which comes with two side salads, miso soup and potato wedges.

The burger was ridiculously good and we were very pleased that there were burger bags on the table to hold your bun and stop the mess escaping as this piled-high burger got messy fast! For dessert we both opted for the Black Rice Chocolate Cake.

Nick enjoyed his with ice cream for a few hundred extra yen and I had the standard rice whip and chocolate sauce. These cakes were not-too-sweet, slightly moist and really delicious. It certainly wasn't the last time we ate them during our Tokyo adventure.

After a long afternoon exploring Takeshita Street, my favourite place to shop ever, we had an early dinner at Brown Rice Cafe. This is a super healthy macrobiotic spot located in Harajuku. They have set menus to choose from alongside their à la carte options and I just ordered what the person next to me was eating because it looked delicious!

I was very pleased with my meal which consisted of steamed veggies and tofu with two types of dipping sauce - sakura and miso, brown rice, veg filled soup, pickles and seaweed salad. This was a surprisingly filling meal and I'd recommend this place to anyone who likes to eat at the healthier end of the spectrum.

On our way home we swung by Natural House health food store where the vegan card came in handy again. We left with plenty of snacks for our day trip the next day including miso brown rice crackers, mandarin jelly made with agar, French chocolate filled breakfast bars, deep fried tofu, more ganmodoki, fruit, a couple of drinks and some imported gummy sweets.

As well as tasty take-out snacks Natural House also has a juice bar... 

...and more interestingly right next to the juice bar is an ice cream counter. 

Somehow Nick and I managed to miss the opening hours for both of these sections of the store about five times during our trip. I know! I feel like I've failed you! If anyone goes please tell me about it.

The next day's day trip was one of the things I was the most squeaky and excited about and if you've met me you can probably imagine how high pitched I got during the day because we were visiting, wait for it.... Puroland!! Aka, Hello Kitty World!!! It surpassed every one of my expectations and was the silliest most squee-inducing day trip I've ever been on. We were the oldest people there without children by miles...in fact I think we were the only people there without children but whatever, we didn't care!

The whole day was brilliant! I think Nick enjoyed it too but maybe more because of how overexcited I was than because of a genuine love for Kitty and friends. The Sanrio Character Boat Ride was our first stop, aimed at people aged 3-7 it was just the kind of gentle ride I like (no going upside down for me thank you), we also got to tour Kitty's home, watch a play about Kitty and her family going on a disastrous picnic, and meet Kitty herself but the Arigatou Hug You parade was definitely the highlight. Just look at the cute spangly brilliance!

I can't really think of a more adorable way to end this post so I'll leave you with that twinkly picture of Kitty and Mimi in their matching bear dresses. I'll be back soon with more Tokyo adventuring and the start of our super fun rail journey.

Vegan in Japan: Day One in Tokyo

Eeeeek, you guys, I'm so excited to tell you about my trip! I can't believe how in love with Japan I am. I mean I knew I was going to enjoy it but I wasn't necessarily expecting to fall in love. I fell hardest for Tokyo, it was like that feeling when you just click with someone but y'know, with a big, bright, buzzy, bustling city. We arrived home on Monday after a three week trip that started and ended in the capital but also took in the sights and sounds of Nikko, Kyoto, Nagoya, Osaka, Nara, Hiroshima and Ōkunoshima.

All of my research and obsessive cherry blossom watch website stalking payed off and we touched down super early in the morning on the day that the cherry blossoms came into full bloom. So perfect and so serendipitous as you can never really predict when the blossoms will come. After dropping off our luggage we walked to Shinjuku Gyoen and despite having looked at a million pictures of the blossoms online I was amazed at how beautiful it was. We wandered around the park taking breaks to sit on the grass and on benches to check out both the blossoms and the people checking out the blossoms. Hanami, cherry blossom viewing, is a big deal and it was wonderful to watch people enjoying the bloom; so many people had fancy cameras and tripods and everyone was trying to get the perfect shot.

This was a spectacular start to our trip, I could have stayed until dusk but hunger eventually dragged us away and we headed for T's TanTan to fill up on ramen. T's is one of Tokyo's most blogged about spots by vegan travellers so I was pretty excited to finally be visiting myself. Located inside Tokyo station it's been described as difficult to get to but we had no problem at all thanks to instructions we found online. It's located on a shopping street (yup, inside the station!) called Keiyo Street. If you're arriving by train you just need to follow signs to the Keiyo line and then for Keiyo Street, if you arrive on foot you need to use a ticket machine (instructions available in English) and buy a platform ticket for ¥130. You'll find T's in a little corner just at the top of some escalators and it will either be a very long or very short walk depending on where you're coming from, the station's massive!

As well as serving a variety of ramen dishes T's also serves curry.

On this first visit I picked the Miso Ramen from the Spring menu...

...and Nick chose T's Shoyu Ramen

We both loved these hot, flavourful, comforting bowls of soup and as we were eating and chatting we realised that neither of us had ever eaten ramen before! I've eaten noodle soups but with udon or soba and we've both eaten ramen style noodles with stir frys but never actual ramen. Ridiculous. I'm sure there's a recipe on The PPK and I can't wait to try my hand at making it at home. Whilst I enjoyed the spring special, I love corn, my favourite and the ramen I ordered over and over again was T's Shoyu Ramen. I loved the slightly salty broth as well as the yuba, nori, bamboo shoots hidden within. My love for the noodles should go without saying. Being a little ridiculous when it comes to anything peppery I did find the broth a little on the peppery side but we cunningly circumnavigated this issue by visiting at breakfast time. We discovered entirely by accident that the broth's significantly less peppery at breakfast, don't worry though pepper lovers it comes with a shaker of the white stuff so you can go crazy! If you're visiting Tokyo T's should be a must visit, we loved it so much that we ate there three or four times and I'd be pretty stoked if a place like this opened up in Brighton.

After walking around the city a little more we checked into our hotel so that we could change out of our travel clothes and then we headed out to do even more exploring. On our early evening adventure we stumbled across a Hello Kitty Sakura pop-up shop! I was so excited! As we we'd only brought backpacks on the trip and were heading all over the place via train in the coming weeks I just picked up a couple of little things.

They came in the cutest bag I've ever seen, there's a rosette sticker for fucks sake! Obviously I kept it! 

There really is cute stuff everywhere in Japan, it was so hard not to buy every single thing with Rilakkuma or Hello Kitty on it. I'd have needed 10 extra backpacks rather than the one extra bag I bought and brought home full of stuff.

As well as loving spotting cute things everywhere I looked I was also enamoured with the amount of neon in the city, I swear I was taking pictures of everything that glowed that first night. This kitschy looking place was one of my fave's. I assume they have no vegan options, I'm often optimistic about these things but not stupidly so!

We ended our evening of exploring at the famous Shibuya Crossing which I would guess we crossed about ten times before deciding that that was probably enough for one evening!

This is also where I tried my first ever Starbucks! I'll be going back to boycotting them now that I'm home but in a place where vegan options aren't scarce but are definitely harder to come by I couldn't resist the call of a matcha soy tea latte - a Japanese speciality that I'm told isn't on the menu anywhere else in the world. I'd read about their soy milk card system online before we left and it made me feel much more confident that I wasn't going to end up with dairy milk by accident. I'd love it if all busy coffee places would do this!

This was the first of many of these latte's that I enjoyed on the trip, I'm a long time matcha fan and I'll be attempting to make one at home soon. We loved people watching from up above and we were super lucky to grab a table, that never happened again at this busy location!

We had a pretty early night that night and dinner was some snacks we grabbed from the conbini eaten in bed.

Conbini, if you don't already know, are small, well stocked, and seemingly always open convenience stores that are on almost every street in the big cities and are relatively easy to find almost everywhere. 7/11, Family Mart and Lawson are the three we spotted the most and the ones we put the most effort into researching the vegan-ness of snacks at. At the beginning of the trip we only knew that these few things were definitely vegan but you'll never catch me complaining about salted potato chips, onigiri and edamame. Thankfully we got a whole lot of help from the amazing people who run the veganjapan Instagram account and together we found loads more snacks that I'll be devoting a post to soon.

I don't want to overwhelm you with a hundred pictures or hurt my wrists (stupid joint pain is now exacerbated by typing as well as everything else - don't worry I'm seeing a physio next week) so part two of my super fun adventure will be popping up shortly. Have a great weekend!