Suggestions for meals in Japan?
I live in Vancouver but am in Japan for a month, accompanying my fiance who is here for work. I'm pulling the housewife thing and as such the cooking is kind of my job right now. Which is fine when we're home in Canada but... y'know, travel.
( long-winded details )
( long-winded details )
The vegan onigiri are usually plain, kelp/konbu, umeboshi, or sekihan. That's about it. I would suggest memorizing the kanji for meat, fish, egg, milk, etc. Hiragana is also helpful to know the flavour!
If you're interested in common local vegan food, I love kinpira-gobou (a mixture of greater burdock root and carrots - also a bit spicy) and horenso no goma-ae (wilted spinach salad with sesame dressing - very sweet and yummy!). Many supermarkets sell them ready-made, though you can also make them yourself. And for sweets there's always azuki dango/sweet red bean dumplings (on a stick).
Depending on where you live, there are sometimes vegan-friendly supermarkets around (you can find the adresses online). They have imported stuff and also native vegan stuff (cheaper!).
I usually get my bread from Natural House because they have stuff besides white bread, but my local bakery has ONE TYPE of bread with no dairy.
There is a Japanese vegan cookbook series called "VEGE BOOK" from the restaurant Cafe 8 and they recently came out with an English edition. All the ingredients are local of course, but the type of food varies.
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AVOID (these are not any specific words necessarily): 牛 乳 卵 魚 海老 肉 豚 鳥
and there are a lot of kanji for the different types of seafood... ask if something has any fishy stuff in it.
Vegan onigiri flavours are usually in kana except for 赤飯 (sekihan). It's recognizable by its pink colour and red beans.
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