How to be Raw in 東京


Eating Out

Dining out raw can be tricky anywhere, but the difficulty is compounded in a land where the language can baffle and the notion of raw food is not well known. In Japan, especially outside of urban centers, getting vegetable or fruit-only fare can be quite a challenge, especially if you are not well-versed in reading kanji. Most sauces and stocks are fish-based, so even if you are a cooked-food vegan, you may not end up getting what you think you have ordered. Most waiters tend not to be knowledgeable about the fare they serve. Moreover, although this is fast changing, the basic principles of vegetarianism are not implicitly understood.

Even before my journey into raw food, as a vegetarian, I have had to explain a number of times that vegetarians indeed can, in fact, eat rice and bananas. On more than several occasions in restaurants, food had arrived on my table with morsels of meat hiding in my plate after having explicitly explained to the waiter (in Japanese) that animal products are not things that I consume. I remember having to elucidate to one waiter that yes, the bacon bits that were sprinkled on my salad were derived form a pig. (Then again, these days the bits are more likely based on some sort of artificial soy compound!)

It seems odd that a Buddhist country in which animal consumption was even prohibited at one point in history should be so clueless, but alas, this is modern Nippon. However, the good news is that at least in Tokyo, increasingly healthier options have popped up over the years. Locals are becoming more health-conscious and aware of what they eat. Many Japanese are familiar with the slow food movement, and support the traditional Japanese diet, which may not exactly be raw, but is nonetheless still one of the healthiest cuisines in the world. The macrobiotic diet, a whole foods diet centering around cooked whole grains, originated in Japan.

Regarding raw food eateries across Japan, well, they only exist in the Kanto area as far as I know.   T’s in Jiyugaoka serves raw vegan fare, as does Rainbow Raw Food in Hamamatsucho. There used to be a raw food restaurant called Veggie Paradise in Yoyogi-Uehara, but it closed down seemingly right after it opened. It has since relocated to Yoyogi Hachimon Station, renamed Café Alive (owner Yuki Ito is also responsible for the Japan Living Food Association).  In July 2009, some raw foodie friends of mine helped to open Manna, but sadly those friends have left Japan. It has gone through a few management changes, has changed location to fancy pants Daikanyama (where you can buy Prada and Gucci accessories FOR YOUR DOG), and sadly, the end of 2011 it closed shop.

If you can bear a little heat on your produce, and happen to live near or in “The Big Mikan,” then I recommend the Tokyo vegan restaurants below. Chances are there will be raw offerings on the menu. You can always dare to ask if they will prepare something for you if not. This is certainly not normal Japanese customer behavior, but sometimes it works!

For more vegan-friendly listings in Tokyo and beyond, Chiba Prefecture resident expat Herwin Walravens has put together a guide that you can purchase on his Vegan Japan site or on the Vegan Restaurant Pocket Guide news site. You can always check out the Happy Cow for more restaurant listings. You can also try the Japanese Vege-Navi guide, and finally don’t forget VegeTokyo, the English “online magazine for vegetarians, vegans, microbians, and anyone else.”

Food Shopping

Probably the most known place to online shop for organic vegetarian choices is Tengu Foods (Alishan), based in Saitama Prefecture. They have created a new website for the organic center in English. Less know is Warabe Mura, a small mail-order company based in Gifu Prefecture. They offer high-quality vegan whole foods. I really loved their vegan soup stock (not that I’m cooking much at the moment). Not unique to Warabe, but nice all the same, is signing up for their weekly box of fresh veggie produce, delivered to your door. The only thing is that it’s expensive, and you have no say in what goes in the box – whatever is in season, basically. (Local vegetables in season are a good thing, but you might have no idea what you have received or if it is edible in its natural, raw state.)

In the mid-70s, an organization called Daichi started up as an NGO with the goal of supporting organic farming. Now it is also a group of companies operating under the principles of the NGO. It has a food distribution company working hard to create a green market. Daichi’s homepage is only in Japanese, so get some help if you need it to sign up. It is a great way to have quality foods delivered to your home.

Natural House is a good place to start for organic products, although this site too, is only in Japanese and tends to run on the pricey side. They have branches all over Tokyo.The one I like to frequent lies on 青山 Aoyama Street just off 表参道 Omotesando Street. Check out Natural House’s online store.

In Ueno, Tokyo, there is a famous street called “Candy Lane” (アメ横 Ame Yoko) on which a store over 60 years old called Kojima-ya sells raw, dried fruits and nuts. If you can’t get there (but I recommend you go at least once to take in the charming, old-world atmosphere of the area), then you can order online.

New York Company Ambrosia has branched into Japan with its Organic Nectars. They sell agave products and you can order from them online. Although it was nice to avoid using the credit card (I paid COD) and have my order arrive 2 days later, it was still more expensive than ordering from overseas. A couple of other stores specializing in raw foods have come to my awareness – one is Living Foods Japan run from Tochigi Prefecture by acquaintance Thomas Malone. Run by another of my acquaintances is Raw Food Lohas, Japanese owned and operated, and based in Hokkaido. I’m sure there will be more in the future. Again, my general impression is that it’s cheaper from abroad, but these are great if you prefer to order in Japanese. Raw Food Lohas sells Excalibur dehydrators, good-quality juicers etc. which are sold at competitive prices and obviously would arrive to your Japanese home much faster.

More and more online vendors selling mostly imported bits and bobs are popping up. I’ll try to keep adding to the list below as I find stores. Many stores are hosted on Rakuten, which is a major online marketplace in Japan. Of course these sites are mostly in Japanese, and I’ve included those mentioned above.

For raw-food specific international online stores, check out my squidoo lens at http://www.squidoo.com/rawfoodstores. Not all of these stores listed there will ship to Japan, but most will. In a couple of cases, I have had stuff shipped to my home country (Canada) and then redirected to me via US shipping through kind family members who frequent the US (Canadian shipping costs are insane!). Obviously, the bulk of your raw food needs (fresh fruits and veggies) should be met locally. For a list of stores selling organic and natural foods in the Tokyo area, click here (in Japanese).

As for shopping in your local supermarket, these days organic (有機 yuuki) produce is becoming more popular, as are product with no preservatives (無添加 mutenka), so you might have quite a few options. At my local grocery store outside Tokyo, I can now get raw miso, raw soy sauce, and unsulferized, unsalted, raw nuts and dried fruits. Times are changing.

Look for the green JAS symbol, which indicates that the food is organic. Note that Japanese laws on what constitutes organic may not be the same as in other countries. Ask around when you are shopping. Japanese are jumping on the healthy option bandwagon, so your questions and demands will not seem strange. Especially since the 3/11 earthquake and resulting Fukushima nuclear issue, I’ve also noticed that the origin of national produce is clearly indicated, so it’s easy to avoid certain localities if you are concerned. (I believe concern, if any, should only really be allocated to leafy greens, as any beta or alpha radiation would infect the shallow roots of plants like spinach, but not produce systems with deeper systems. Actually, I have been going out of my way to support the farmers suffering from fear mongering by buying produce from the north.) If you are lucky enough to live out in the countryside, surely you have seen stands where farmers leave produce in a little stall by the roadside, and you just help yourself, putting coins in the box provided. Much of this produce is organic -  you can tell from the bug trails and the lack of typical “perfection” found in main market fruits and veggies.

To be honest, the place where I do a lot of shopping is in the American wholesale chain, Costco, which now has numerous chains in Japan. Most of their produce is not organic, but increasing quantities (like their ruccula and spinach) are. The beauty of Costco lies in the huge quantities of food you get for low prices. I live near a store branch (which was severely damaged by the earthquake, and has not yet reopened), so I fork out the 4,000 yen yearly membership and shop there frequently. I sometimes use my bicycle to get there, but Costco delivers for very affordable prices when my load is too large for the bike panniers. If you don’t want to pay for membership, or, more likely, live too far from a branch and/or don’t have a car, you can take advantage of a company called The Flying Pig (bilingual), who will, for a markup of course, shop for your and deliver to your door. Online shopping is far more limited however; you probably will not be able to take advantage of the same quantity of produce. You can definitely take advantage of their huge bags of frozen fruit, though!

Finally, in the upscale basement shopping section of many departments stores, you can also sometimes find a small section devoted to packaged whole foods, supplements, and health information. Organic produce is often located here too.  Of course, for items other than fresh produce, you can always order from abroad (you can also check the links on this blog for shopping sites in addition to the lens at http://www.squidoo.com/rawfoodstores). There is no one store that caters to all my personal shopping needs, so I do use a variety. Since I first created this site a relatively short time ago, it has become easier to find things like agave and cacao nibs in Japan, but still, even with the shipping costs, more often than not it is cheaper to have it shipped over. I make sure to specify sea mail. Airmail can cost almost as much as the goods themselves!

Resources

If you’d like to read about raw food in Japanese, check out Mihoko Sekido and Yutaka Saiki’s Starting a Raw Food Lifestyle (始めようラーフード生活 Hajimeyo Ra-Fu-do Seikatsu). Just plugging in “ローフード” into amazon.jp will yield at least a dozen books now. One of my Japanese friends just published one in 2010.

The online Tokyo Vegetarian Guide by Hiroko Kato offers information on shopping, useful Japanese phrases, recommended readings, links, as well as dining out. (Check out the Vegan Restaurant Pocket Guide as well as the Happy Cow the for restaurant listings too, as mentioned above.)

If you can function in Japanese, the newly-formed Japan Raw Food Association (JRFA – 日本ローフード協会) offers classes, and are planning a lot for the future! Judging by the website, they seem to be creating the Japanese equivalent of basic courses from the famous Living Light Culinary Institute in California – that would make sense, as so many of the Japanese raw food chefs I know have studied there. Someday I would so love to do the same! I took several courses via the JRFA  in summer 2010, and it was a fabulous experience! (as was the cost, sadly…)

Oh, and one more resource: Every fall (usually late October, when it’s still T-shirt weather), there is an outdoor vegetarian festival in Yoyogi Park (Tokyo), which is increasingly vegan and even raw. You can find information on this festival at http://tokyo-vegefest.com. As long as I am in Japan, you will probably find me there yearly, promoting MILA, some raw treats, or maybe simply taking in the day.

Here’re some snaps I nicked from Alishan to help you explain veganism to chefs:

And check out this useful clip from Mika of VegOut Tokyo:

One more thing: If you can read Japanese, plug into the Japanese raw food blogging community at Blog Mura. I do believe this blog and a couple of my other sites are listed here:

にほんブログ村 料理ブログ ローフードへ

 

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