My current project is implementing a new SAP system at some of our warehouses in the U.S, Japan, and Europe. When I joined the project I relished the possibility of going to Japan – I’d only been here once before, for a mere\u00c2\u00a024 hours,\u00c2\u00a0in transit from Singapore to Houston, so the possibility of a longer stay was enticing.\u00c2\u00a0Six months into the project I managed to wrangle my first trip.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d originally conceived of this as a Change Management dog and pony show for myself and my immediate supervisor, but by the time I’d floated it past management, several other members of the team decided “ooh, that sounds like fun!” and the trip ballooned into a 12-person junket, at a cost of $250,000 (yes, your high gas prices are paying for my international jollies! Thanks!).<\/p>\n
A few members of the design team had been to Japan for a couple of weeks late last year on ‘design review sessions’, and to a man\/woman (that’s men and<\/em> women – not hermaphrodites or ladyboys…) they all complained about the food in Japan, moaning that they couldn’t find anything to eat, and were forced to endure dinners that resembled episodes of Fear Factor<\/em>, <\/em>at the hands of their hosts. I would have put this down to the usual American bellyaching, but most of them were of Indian stock, and I would have expected them to be a bit more thick-stomached<\/em> about such things.\u00c2\u00a0 Nonetheless, I was determined to make the most of it.<\/p>\n I have the added ‘complication’ of being a vegetarian, but I figured that given that 70% of the population is officially Buddhist, vegetarian food would be easy enough to come by.\u00c2\u00a0 Wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 Although Buddhists aren’t required<\/em> to be vegetarian, you’d at least expect them to try a bit harder than most, but clearly the ‘refrain from killing’ tenet doesn’t extend to our friends in the animal kingdom.\u00c2\u00a0 Consequently, vegetarian food is extremely hard to come by, with many restaurants\u00c2\u00a0offering\u00c2\u00a0nothing<\/span> vegetarian on the menu. Even ‘plain noodles’ isn’t an option, as they’re nearly always cooked and served in a broth made out of beef, pork, or chicken.<\/p>\n For my first week in Japan, I was based in the main office in Tokyo (Shinagawa).\u00c2\u00a0 The building’s cafeteria (shared with Sony-Ericsson) had less vegetarian options than the Houston office cafeteria on Go Texan Day<\/a>, so I was limited to a salad every day.\u00c2\u00a0 That said, the salads were pretty damned good, including a different mystery-vegetable (no idea what most of them were, but they were all very nice), and\u00c2\u00a0a different type of mushroom\/fungus, each\u00c2\u00a0day.\u00c2\u00a0 The\u00c2\u00a0fungus\u00c2\u00a0(basically, stuff like mushrooms that grows on the side of a tree – very, very tasty!) was such a highlight I found myself eagerly anticipating lunchtime just to see what the day’s treat would be.<\/p>\n Although vegetarianism isn’t that prevalent in Japan, when they do go vegetarian, the Japanese go the whole hog (excuse the expression) all the way to vegan,\u00c2\u00a0rather than the\u00c2\u00a0ovo-lacto<\/em> (egg- and dairy-consuming) take on vegetarianism more prevalent in the West (and observed by me – “nothing with a face” is my yardstick).\u00c2\u00a0 So you can usually find a handful of vegan restaurants in the major cities.\u00c2\u00a0 A colleague who’s been here a few years has a daughter who is vegetarian, and he lent me a book on vegan restaurants in Tokyo, which proved to be extremely handy.<\/p>\n After a couple of days of surviving on (perfectly edible, and fresh daily) vegetarian sushi-plates from 7-Eleven on the way back to the hotel, I struck out in search of a proper vegetarian restaurant.\u00c2\u00a0 By using a combination of the book I borrowed and the GPS on my BlackBerry, I managed to find the Vegan Healing Cafe<\/strong>, which was hidden down some backstreet in the Shibuya district of the city.\u00c2\u00a0 The food here was excellent, and the restaurant 100% committed to the cause – they even give you a handful of ‘meat is murder’-style stickers<\/a> with your bill, which had me trying to hide my leather shoes under the table in case they denounced me as a murderer and flayed me with hemp ropes.<\/p>\n The next night I tried to find an Indian restaurant (Nataraj<\/strong> in Ginza) out of the same book, but it turned out to be closed, so I had to make do with a bag of crisps\/chips, washed down with a bottle of green tea\u00c2\u00a0(warm! they have ‘hot-racks’ as well as chillers in the convenience stores). Coca-Cola is extremely hard to find, being limited to a couple of vending machines dotted around the city. Most vending machines<\/a> sell only a selection of very strong coffee drinks, and feature a photo of Tommy Lee Jones<\/a> on the front of the machine (presumably as a warning as to what you’ll look like if you drink too much of the stuff, in the style of those diseased lung photos you get on cigarette packets in England…)<\/p>\n At the weekend I hooked up with a Japanese friend (Eve) of a buddy (Farhad) from the States, who took me (and another couple – Andy and Hyongi) out to another vegan restaurant (Eat More Greens<\/strong> at Azsabu Juban), for which I am eternally grateful.\u00c2\u00a0Again,\u00c2\u00a0 the food was excellent – even the vegan apple pie (not very Japanese, I know, but I’m a sucker for dessert, and the only Japanese ‘desserts’ I’ve have been coffee-flavored jello and strawberry-flavored tofu, nether of which really cut it. Oh, and green tea ice-cream, which was alright<\/em>, but not exactly Ben and Jerry’s…\u00c2\u00a0 I did see what looked like donuts on a street stall one day, but my colleague thankfully stopped me before I ordered a dozen – they were filled with octopus!<\/p>\n Moving on to Osaka, we hooked up with the rest of the team (I was in Tokyo on my own as a kind of advance party to get the rest of the trip set up), and we started going out to dinned a bit more often.\u00c2\u00a0 (Whereas I’ll quite happily skip dinner, Americans must<\/span> eat three full meals a day – especially if it’s all on expenses [how do you think we get to $250,000!].)\u00c2\u00a0 To give full credit to my hosts, they took us all out to a macrobiotic<\/em> restaurant (Maman Terrace<\/strong> at Kansai) just for my benefit (I didn’t have the heart to point out that even us regular vegetarians see macrobiotic people as overly-fussy freaks…).\u00c2\u00a0 Again, the food was great (Ehara-San, it was the “best meal ever!” two thumbs up!), although I was the only one in the party who thoughts so.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the Americans refused to order anything, saying he’d call in at McDonald’s on the way back to the hotel.\u00c2\u00a0 His loss.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, this proved to be the one concession to me (maybe the American-led management had a quiet word with our local hosts after the macrobiotic meal) and for the rest of the trip we ate at ‘regular’ restaurants.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Which included the Bronco Billy’s<\/strong> steak restaurant on two consecutive days in Nagoya – not exactly embracing local cuisine!\u00c2\u00a0 That said, I didn’t entirely starve.\u00c2\u00a0 Several places were ‘food on sticks’ places of various types (raw food you dip in hot oil, battered food you dip in soy sauce, raw food you barbecue at your table) so I could usually get something vegetarian (although cabbage doesn’t barbecue too well…), often along with (raw) egg to dip it into.\u00c2\u00a0 Mmm!\u00c2\u00a0Plus, tofu in one form or another is usually easy enough to find if you can stop them slathering it in beef stock or sprinkling bacon bits onto it.<\/p>\n It has to be said, though, that although I was the only vegetarian in the party, I was probably the easiest to please.\u00c2\u00a0 The Americans were extremely fussy, refusing to eat anything that didn’t look like a steak or a McNugget, not touching the side dishes, and generally\u00c2\u00a0turning their nose up\u00c2\u00a0at whatever was put in front of them.\u00c2\u00a0 Jeez, if you eat chicken why not eat the fried chicken skin, or chickens-neck kebabs, or skewered chicken livers?\u00c2\u00a0Where do you think the ‘mechanically-recovered’ chicken in a McNugget comes from??<\/p>\n On a\u00c2\u00a0couple of days I had my local direct-report (Kosabayashi-San) take me to somewhere off the beaten track, where he did his best to explain to chefs that I was vegetarian and could they please prepare something with nothing dead in it. Telling them I was ‘allergic’ to meat\/fish seemed to be easier for them to comprehend than explaining that I was vegetarian but ate eggs, and they did cook me up some really good food.\u00c2\u00a0 Of particular note was the Uchina Suba<\/strong> Okinawan-style noodle bar in Nagoya, where they fried me up a really spicy dish of soba noodles and kim chee.\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe I’m biased because the chef was sweet on me -\u00c2\u00a0he said\u00c2\u00a0I had\u00c2\u00a0“beautiful blue eyes”.\u00c2\u00a0 At least that’s what Kosabayashi-San told me\u00c2\u00a0the\u00c2\u00a0chef\u00c2\u00a0said – he could well have said he wanted to take me out back and bugger me senseless, for all I knew, and Kosabayashi-San was just [thankfully!] protecting me…<\/p>\n Anyway, after two weeks, I can honestly say I’ve not had a bad meal yet (although I have skipped several – which may explain how I’ve managed to lose 5 lbs since I’ve been\u00c2\u00a0here….).\u00c2\u00a0 In\u00c2\u00a0fact, I’ve had some excellent<\/em> meals.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, Japan isn’t the easiest place in the world to be a vegetarian, but there’s definitely enough good food\u00c2\u00a0around to make\u00c2\u00a0a trip here worthwhile.\u00c2\u00a0 If only I didn’t have all of these meetings getting in the way…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My current project is implementing a new SAP system at some of our warehouses in the U.S, Japan, and Europe. 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