Hello! My wife and I will be traveling to Japan early next year. My wife’s only concern is with eating, and specifically not wanting to offend a restaurant in certain situations. Ill summarize the main issues with bullet points.
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* We’ve heard that it’s considered rude at some restaurants not to finish your main course. Often times, she cannot eat large portions of food because it will end in an upset stomach. Sometimes, she will just share a portion of my food, which I’ve heard is also rude at some places. Even if the food is amazing, she simply cannot eat a lot.
* She cannot eat spicy foods. How can we tell if the food is spicy. Do we simply ask the staff for more bland options? Ramen would be an AMAZING option for her because it’s just noodles and broth, but we would like to avoid with a lot of spice.
* No Alcohol . We’ve also heard it’s rude at some sit down restaurants to not order a drink with the meal. She primarily has to drink water with her meals.
* No Raw Foods. (Immune compromised)
We are currently learning phrases and translations to indicate that she has Crohn’s Diseases or “ulcerative colitis” and that her diet is restricted. We’ve traveled to many countries, but Japan feels like it will be a bit more challenging for her regarding food.
What would be the best way to handle this situation where food and drink may be hard to navigate for my wife? We do not want to offend anyone, or cause a scene.Any tips or advice would be extremally helpful, as I want her to be as comfortable as possible during the trip!
3 comments
> it’s considered rude at some restaurants not to finish your main course
Sharing food is considered rude especially at full restaurants because you are occupying two seats but only giving them one revenue and even creating more work (asking for extra plates/cutlery to facilitate sharing, lingering longer, staff serving two cups of tea rather than one). Aside from this, her personal health >>>>> politeness. You have all the best intentions, are still paying full price, and will never see these people again. Especially as a woman, it’s easy to slide by using the “oh the portion was just so large” excuse via body language.
If you are really concerned, avoid mom-and-pop shops and eat at chains / larger outlets where the individual employee clearing the table is not personally related to the owner and did not go to the market to buy ingredients and cook your food.
> spicy foods
Not sure what her tolerance is, but most food is not very heavily seasoned (outside of salt).
> no alcohol
Nearly all restaurants will have non-alcoholic drink options (soda etc.) and many serve free tea / water.
> raw foods
Avoid sashimi, don’t order salads, and eat around raw stuff if that is okay for her? For example, don’t eat the lettuce served with tonkatsu.
Had UC – in remission, just got back from Japan last month
Meal sizes are smaller than in America (not sure where you’re from) but you can often get away with smaller meals. Sushi and raw foods are not a must to eat; my wife hates fish (and sushi) and it’s easily avoided. Research your meals ahead of time for what you can/can’t eat. Research restaurants, have some planned out restaurants and backup ones incase they are full. Soba and Udon are fairly plain, Shabu Shabu you can control what you eat. Yakitori is by the stick and I don’t recall it ever being spicy. There are plenty of ramen places which you can research ahead of time, and most have non-spicy and spicy options. Japanese curry might be a nono for her, but it’s not super spicy.
After getting UC I never really drank much, and never felt pressured to while in Japan. Most smaller restaurants don’t even serve liquor. Higher end restaurants might, but your typical small shop doesn’t.
I know you didn’t ask about this part, but there are bathrooms (very clean) everywhere. Don’t feel worried about that.
– I didn’t complete my meal a number of times and don’t think I even got a second look, I also shared food and that was no problem. There were even a couple times we ordered individually and they clearly expected us to split lmao
– I don’t think I had any meals I would consider spicy in japan. There are places you can specifically control the spice level as well, coco curry being my first thought
– I also cannot drink alcohol and if I was being judged I couldn’t tell. They do have a wider/better selection of juices and mocktail type drinks so I would often order those. Just be aware you don’t always get water as a default so may have to ask for it/at some places cold barley tea is the default
– raw foods should be easy enough to avoid. Might be trickier if you want to eat sushi but places usually have at least some sort of noodle dish she could have