Vegetarian and Vegan food in Tokyo

The food in Japan was so yummy and healthy too, that inspite of eating to my heart's content, I lost one kilo in 10 days! Kaiseki is a multi-course Japanese meal that is exquisite and delicious and a must try.

Below are some of my favourite restaurants by location, so you always have something close by.

Tokyo Station

T’s TanTan

This sightly difficult to find restaurant serves delicious vegan Ramen noodles. It is located inside Tokyo station which is massive. On the first floor of the station is Keio Street. If you reach here, the restaurant is easy to find since it is located on one end of the street. You will need a ticket to get inside the station.

There was a queue to get in and we had to wait for 15-20 minutes for our turn.

Black Sesame Ramen with the white vegetables on the side.

Spicy Midori Tan-Tan

The soup comes in many flavours - Black Sesame, Golden Sesame, Midori Tantan etc. You can select toppings of Red, Green or White or vegetables, though towards evening, they tend to run out of the vegetables in that order.

You can ask them to leave off the mock meat if you don’t like it.

Golden Sesame was very good and so was the spicier Midori Tantan. Portion sizes are huge.

Shibuya

Nagi Shokudo

It is located a bit away from the madness that is Shibuya on a quiet street corner next to an Italian Restaurant. The Italian restaurant is easy to spot, but even though Nagi Shokudo is in the same building, it is slightly hidden. 

It is a vegan restaurant with many options in set meals. Their everything included set meal was good. Particularly nice were their Falafels. They also served fried papads!

Olu Olu Cafe

This Hawaiian themed restaurant is quite far from Shibuya and we needed a cab to get there. It is a vegan restaurant, but most of the dishes had mock meat. The Thai fried rice, one of the few items without mock meat was very good as was the clear Ginger soup.

This blackboard with their daily menu was brought to our table!

Akihabara

Komaki Syokudo

This restaurant is located inside the Charbara Department Store, under the tracks opposite the UDX building.

It serves Shojin Ryori - Buddhist vegan set meals. You can select one Tofu dish, 2 sides and the type of rice you want with the Miso soup. Very tasty satisfying food.

Ginza & Shinjuku

Ain Soph 

The Ginza outlet of this vegan restaurant is spread over 5 floors.It serves pretty Bento boxes with delicious salad, Curry, Tofu, mock meat, rice and Miso soup. Their gluten free pancakes are also worth trying. They also have an outlet in Shinjuku.

Tofu, fried soy meat, spinach curry, salad (the broccoli, cauliflower etc. were absolutely raw and tasted great), dipping sauce, spring onion pickles, rice and tomato soup. Not in the picture is the Miso soup.

Roppongi

Chien Fu

This is a very classy vegan restaurant on the fourth floor of Sai Building in Roppongi. It has finger-lickingly awesome Ma Po Tofu and Fried rice. A lot of dishes do include mock meat, but they can omit it is some.

Ma Po Tofu

Odaiba Aqua City Mall

Zest Cantina

This was the only time we did not eat Japanese food. The Hilton next door has a massive all-day dining coffee shop that has vegetarian options, but it was full due to weddings and conferences being held there. So we went with Happy Cow's recommendation to this Mexican restaurant. The food and service did not disappoint.

The cavernous interiors!

Salad in a jar!!!

Salad sticks in a bucket!!!

You get to pound your own Guacamole!!! How fresh can you get!!!

Massive burger

Nachos with Salsa

Atago

Daigo

If you would like to splurge at a 2 Michelin starred restaurant, Daigo is the place. They offer various set meals with prices ranging from 10,000 yen per person up to 19,000 yen per person.

Reservation is essential. They take reservations over the phone. Once you reach there, you are swept into your private dining room. Your personalised menu, in Japanese ;) is laid out for you. You sit on the floor in front of the table, but below the table, the level of the floor is lower, so you can dangle your feet.

Then start the courses one after the other in a seemingly never ending stream.

The garden outside was in fact more like a terrace garden since it was not on the ground floor.

Anticipation and an Apertif!!!

The lady would serve the food, and tell us what it was before disappearing, only to reappear with another course after 10-15 min.

 The garnish on the Tempura was Rice popcorn on the stalk!!!

These cherry blossoms were the decoration on the earlier plate!

Dessert

Some dishes include Bonito (fish flakes) or eggs so you need to inform them at the time of reservation if you don't want them in your meal since the custom meal is ready when you arrive and the procession just starts!!!

Desserts

Dominique Ansel Bakery

The inventor of the Cronut - a cross between a Croissant and a Doughnut!!!

Detailed instructions on how to eat a Cronut!

Cronut with Lychee filling and Lavender frosting.

A mouth-watering spread

If the huge lines at their New York store have prevented you from trying the famed Cronut, Tokyo is a good place to try one. The bakery has two locations - one inside a mall in Ginza and one in Omote Sando.

Yoku Moku Cafe

This Omote Sando cafe has the most mouth-watering desserts. Famous for their Cigars, their Matcha Tiramisu is a must try!!!

Matcha Tiramisu

More Resources:

The Happy Cow App

Download the Happy Cow app on your phone. It is indispensable if you want vegan or vegetarian food in Japan. Not only does it have listings of restaurants and of stores where you can buy vegan / vegetarian groceries. 

It also has ratings, reviews and information about whether the restaurant is expensive or not, timings etc. It also shows distance from where you are.

It has a map view too. It can also show directions to get to the restaurant on Google maps.

For more recommendations, check out this article from Timeout.