“The concept of shokunin, an artisan deeply and singularly dedicated to his or her craft, is at the core of Japanese culture. Tokyo is the city of ten thousand shokunin. If you come to Japan to eat, you come for them.” Basically, I didn’t want to throw art in an artisan’s face. But I also couldn’t eat their food. Unlike my gluten free guide to Barcelona, where I gave specific addresses, this Japan guide addresses the biggest pain point: communication and knowledge. Understanding the basic kanji so you can read ingredients, knowing what is safe and unsafe, and being able to show a card that can help is far more important than an address where you might not be faced with a waiter or staff who can communicate. That said, at the end of the post is a list of gluten free restaurants in Japan that were provided thoughtfully by fellow celiac Sarah. This kind of research is a good part of what mitigates my fear as a celiac when I travel. I did not do it ahead of this trip, and I regretted it.

In my research I did note that some blogs discuss MSG as being a derivation of wheat. There has been discussion on the web about MSG being unsafe for celiacs, but in the United States, the US Food and Drug association notes: Does “glutamate” in a product mean it contains gluten? No—glutamate or glutamic acid have nothing to do with gluten. A person with celiac disease may react to the wheat that may be present in soy sauce, but not to the MSG in the product. In addition, the Gluten Free Dietician confirms that while MSG used to be derived from wheat flour, it is no longer the case and has not been since the 1960s in North America. That said, sites have referred to Japanese and Chinese MSG as potentially still isolating the additive via wheat gluten. However, the main producer of Japanese MSG, Ajinomoto, does not derive their MSG from wheat. From the blog Just Hungry: Now specifically about Ajinomoto, the white granulated product that is synonymous with MSG: According to the official Japanese Ajinomoto company site, it is currently made by “fermenting the sugar extracted from sugar canes or corn, tapioca starch and other ingredients”.

Of course other companies might still do so in the Asian or Southeast Asian region. I should note that most of the MSG I saw being used in Vietnam and Japan was Ajinomoto. Having stuffed my face in Asia for the last many years, my inadvertent glutening has been related to soy sauce consumption or sauces with flour and not MSG. I would love to hear other people’s experiences here. We went to quite a few izakaya bars during my time in Japan, both with the G Adventures trip and with my friends from the trans-Pacific crossing. tupperware sushi maker for saleIzakaya are casual drink and food places, smokey from the grilled meat and loud with beer-filled patrons hungry and conversational. sushi grade tuna jacksonville flWhile almost all of the food at an izakaya will have wheat or soy, you can ask for your meat or chicken skewers (yakitori) to be made with a salt (shio) cooking technique, instead of the sweet and savoury sauce which has soy in it (called tare). sushi maple ridge 203

Choose salt and you will be ok, or at least I was! They consisted of yakitori that were brushed with salt and grilled, and were not pre-marinated. In North America, it is quite difficult to find 100% buckwheat (soba) noodles. Despite the name, buckwheat does not contain any wheat, and also has no gluten. Buckwheat has been providing protein, zinc and potassium to humans for almost 8,000 years, first appearing in the Balkans in 4000BC.sushi online ansbach Despite being more prevalent in Japan than North America, many dried and fresh versions of soba noodles in Japan are nonetheless mixed with wheat. jiro dreams of sushi plotI only found one noodle restaurant during my travels that made their noodles with 100% buckwheat, far more expensive than the usual soba fare.sushi tei bandung dimana

Unfortunately I was not able to eat the noodles with soup broth because they had put soy sauce for flavouring, so they were kind enough to provide me with the water these same noodles were boiled in and also some freshly grated ginger. Most soba stops will be making noodles with a mixture of wheat and buckwheat, so despite the technically gluten-free base ingredient, they should be avoided unless you’re sure they are all buckwheat.jiro dreams of sushi region 2 Regardless of where I was in Japan, there was a 7-11 or a Family Mart convenience store nearby. Full of fun ice cream treats and prepared food in crazy (to this Montrealer anyhow) flavors, these shops also contained something for the gluten-free eater.  Often there are grocery stores attached to transportation hubs like bus and train stations. These stores are well-stocked and contain many of the snacks I list below. Sashimi is usually just fine, as is sushi when the rice vinegar is not mixed with malt.

Avoid eel (unagi) as it is marinated in a soy-blend. If getting a donburi bowl, like the tuna one below, show them your gluten free card so that you can make sure they don’t brush any soy sauce on the rice prior to placing the fish in the bowl. Morning fish markets — Kanazawa and Tokyo have wondrous ones — are great places to eat fresh sashimi or sushi, as well as freshly shucked oysters. You can also grab a scallop, have it shucked in front of you, and then watch it get grilled on a tiny BBQ. Again, just show the card and make sure they do not put soy sauce as a condiment. They always had lemon juice instead. Plenty of sea urchin too. In Miyajima, you can also get grilled oysters on the side of the alleys, with lemon juice and soy sauce. Simply ask for no soy sauce and you’re set. Matcha green tea is just fine for celiacs. The world's most renowned sushi chef, Jiro Ono, predicts a bleak future for the Japanese speciality because of increasing difficulties in sourcing ingredients, because of overfishing."

The future is so bad," the Michelin three-starred chef, 89, who still works night and day in his restaurant in Tokyo's Ginza district, said. "Even now I can't get the ingredients that I really want. I have a negative view of the future. It is getting harder to find fish of a decent quality."Although long celebrated in Japan, Ono came to global attention when he became the subject of the US documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi in 2011.Despite being showered with accolades, he insists he is still trying to achieve perfection. His advice for young sushi chefs is "to learn patience". "Training is about learning patience," he says. "You can learn technique after you have mastered patience."He is uniquely qualified to know. He was apprenticed aged eight ("I was at elementary school but there was no time for homework. I have been used to standing all day since then").Ono received Japan's prestigious Medal with Yellow Ribbon for dedication to his profession last month. His restaurant Sukiyabashi Jiro was the first sushi restaurant in the world to obtain three Michelin stars, in 2007, when the Tokyo edition of the guide was launched.

Unsurprisingly, he retained the honour this month when Tokyo kept its crown as the gourmet capital of the world with the most starred restaurants. This comes a year after Japanese food (washoku) became the second cuisine, with French, to make it on to Unesco's cultural heritage list.Despite its status, Sukiyabashi Jiro is a modest restaurant in the basement of a business building at the entrance to Ginza Metro station. Customers have no choice over the 30,000 yen (£160) menu, and are served a set 20 pieces, which differ depending on the best ingredients sourced that morning at the famous Tsukiji fish market."I have been to the conveyer-belt sushi restaurants as well," Ono admitted recently. It is important to constantly research.… If you don't have an intense focus to get to the next level, the value of your work will diminish."When Barack Obama ate at the restaurant earlier his year, food critic Masuhiro Yamamoto said the occasion was the "first time in history that the President of the US has had something prepared for him and eaten it immediately after it was prepared".