Hi there,
I've traveled to Japan on numerous occasions with a relative, who is
also allergic to fish products. As you might have suspected, fish is
an extremely big part of the Japanese diet and many restaurants do use
fish broth to prepare even chicken meals.
However, you will find number of restaurants that use chicken broth,
rather than fish broth, when cooking preparing chicken dishes. With
chains of North American or European restaurants, this is almost
always the case, but there are also Japanese dishes where more and
more restaurants prefer to use chicken broth. One example of this is
Chicken Teriyaki.
(typical ingredients mentioned for your information)
boneless, skinless chicken breast
teriyaki sauce
chicken broth
cornstarch
Cooked frozen oriental vegetables
There are also many other dishes that don't use broth at all.
One such dish is an appetizer called Tatsuta Age (marinated fried chicken)
boneless chicken
Japanese soy sauce
sake (Japanese rice wine)
sugar
cornflour
Another such popular main course dish is Yakitori (grilled chicken skewer)
mirin (sweet Japanese sake)
soy sauce
tablespoons sugar
garlic, pressed (optional)
boneless chicken thighs
green onion
To be safe, you should always verify with the restaurant that the meal
that you are about to order does not contain any fish or seafood based
products, but in major cities, there are countless number of
restaurants that are very accomodating to special needs. And, as the
general case goes, the higher the class of the restaurant, the more
accomodating they will be to your personal needs.
--
There are many desserts available in Japan made from rice. A very
popular type of Japanese rice desserts is rice cake. Two common rice
cakes are:
Manju - sticky rice surrounding a sweet bean center
Mochi - a food prepared from rice and used as an ingredient in several
Japanese recipes. It is made by preparing steamed glutinous rice;
pounding it in a mortar; and forming it into various shapes (Usually a
circle or square).
For more Japanese dishes, and their common ingredients, please visit
the following link:
http://www.answers.com/topic/cuisine-of-japan
--
The major cities have abundance of stores/restaurants where you will
be able to find a large selection of food from the Western culture.
The number of large American family restaurant/fast food chains (such
as TGI Friday's and McDonald's) are rapidly growing in Japan and there
should not be any worry in terms of finding adequate meals to eat.
Even at these restaurants, however, you should still mention your
allergy concerns to the waiter/chef as you would normally do at a
Western restaurant.
You can also consider the alternative of hiring a personal chef while
in Japan. The lower cost of hiring chefs and maids in Japan, compared
to North America/Europe, may make this an attractive option for you.
I hope this has helped. If you require any clarification, or would
like me to answer any additional questions, please let me know.
Cheers,
Tox-ga |
