Tokyo Part 1 – Let’s Do This!
Konichiwa from Shinjuku, Tokyo!
After a very long and hungry plane journey (turns out Jetstar don’t have a vegan meal even though I was assured several times over the phone it would be okay), we touched down at our hotel in Shinjuku. It was late at night so we decided to hit the hay and get touristy in the morning.
We spent most of our first day wondering around Shinjuku, in and out of shops and generally having our minds blown. We then decided to catch a taxi to Loving Hut, however we were incredibly disappointed when they were closed (even though the internet indicated otherwise).
In my research before the trip I had read about the vegan offerings at Mos Burger and noticed we had gone past one on our taxi journey, so we decided to walk back and give it a try.
I am traveling with a non-vegan so she opted for a beef burger while I obviously went for the vegan option on the menu, the Kinpira Burger. It’s basically shredded vegetables and seaweed served between two rice cakes instead of bread! It tasted like one big delicious sushi-type thing and I was pleasantly surprised. Even my non-vegan companion thought it looked better than hers, which she found okay but not very interesting.
We decided to get a bit more traditional on day two so we went on the hunt for a sushi joint while walking around Shibuya. Surprisingly we found this quite difficult as many places appeared to have sushi but not an extensive selection. Finally, the sushi gods smiled down on us and we found a place called Sushi Zanmai, which is apparently part of a chain. We sat down and were presented with a menu, littered with images and English descriptions. The waitress also spoke English so I explained to her my dietary requirements and she told me what I could eat. I had four different types of temaki sushi; fermented soybean, cucumber, pickle-radish and salted plum with cucumber. The pickle-radish was my favourite, my least favourite being the fermented soybean as it was a little overpowering in the taste department.
Anyhow, that’s all I’ve got for now, stay tuned for more delicious updates!
Mos Burger
7-1-8 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo
Sushi Zanmai
Shibuya 2-22-11, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Heading to japan at the end of the year, reading this has been great 🙂 how did you find the taxi rides? Expensive? I thought the traffic would be too crazy for any taxi-ing to be worth it 🙁
Hi Phoebee! How exciting, I am very jealous (although I am heading to the US so can’t complain). To be honest, the train is the cheapest and most effective mode of transport in Japan however sometimes you just want to get a taxi. It wasn’t actually too expensive, the first 5kms or so are a set price so if it’s a short distance and you have 2 or more people then it’s probably worth it. Let me know if you have any other questions 🙂