manlydance asked: I love your blog! I've always wanted to visit Japan and now that I've seen these amazing pictures, I want to go even more! There's only one thing I worry about: Are there many vegetarian options? I know most of the cuisine seems to focus on fish, beef and pork, but did you see many vegetarian alternatives on offer and were they easy to find?

My wife has a friend who’s vegetarian, so it’s something that’s usually on her mind…  

Veggie friendly options are everywhere.  Unlike in the US, most ingredients in Japanese dishes tend to be pretty simple and straight forward.

The one exception to this is sauces, many use dashi stock, which is made from shaved/dried tuna, aka Bonito.  If you’re Vegan, it’s possible to find plenty to eat in larger cities, not so much in smaller towns.

That said, when you’re looking at food, it’s important to realize that their veggie options aren’t the same as what we have here in the US.  They’ll use a lot more Daikon, cabbage, Taro root, and miso paste in a lot of stuff.

You’ll also hear a lot about Konnyaku/konjac jelly, or “miracle noodles”. These are also widely available.  Especially up north where they get boiled with ginger and soy sauce for a spicy salty treat.

If you can eat fish at all, you’lll be fine in the smaller cities.

If it’s any concern as to what you’ll be eating, we found it pretty affordable to grab food from local grocery stores and make your own meals.

Failing all other issues, most Japanese menus are plain enough to just flat out tell you if the dish has meat in it or not.  If you saw “牛丼” on a menu, know that you’re looking at a beef bowl, and the first character means “Beef”.  Putting the character for Pork/豚 in the same spot means “Pork Bowl” or “豚丼”.  So at that point, avoiding most of your meat is more of an issue of character memorization.  

Hope the lengthy input helps if you get to go!