Finding vegetarian food in Tokyo was more challenging than I had expected. Yano-sensei often reassured me, saying that adjusting to food is difficult whenever we travel to a new place and that it was completely okay. She reminded me that, for now, the most important thing was to eat properly.
I visited several Indian restaurants. At the first one, I immediately chose palak paneer (An Indian dish made with spinach and cottage cheese – Paneer) , a dish I love and one that is completely vegetarian in India. However, the restaurant owner told me that it wasn’t vegetarian there, which surprised me. I wasn’t entirely sure what ingredients were being added, so in the end, I had to choose the only vegetarian option available for lunch. It was called vegetable karee, which we know as mix-veg sabzi in Northern India.
I had never really understood why the word “curry” has such a strong image outside India, when that isn’t the case in India itself. However, after visiting different Indian restaurants in Japan, I felt I understood it much better and could even discuss it with my Indian friends. While reading menus, I noticed that Indian dishes were commonly labeled as 「カレー / karee」, which means ‘’curry’’ , with ingredients listed underneath, such as chicken curry or vegetable curry.
This helped me understand why Indian food in Japan is often referred to simply as “curry.” In Japan, and in many other countries, the word “curry” is used as a broad category for saucy Indian-style dishes. In India, however, dishes are usually known by their specific names, and we often use words like ‘’sabzi for vegetable dishes’’, ‘’gravy for dishes with sauce’’, and ‘’dal for lentils’’. So even though menus list dishes as “something-karee,” in India, each of these dishes would be known by a completely different name.
The dish I ordered was called vegetable curry (mix-veg sabzi ), and I was impressed by how authentic it tasted. It came with a naan, which was very thick, and a unique salad.
Another Indian restaurant surprised me with a wide range of Indian street-food options. I had heard that samosa (a fried Indian snack with a spiced potato filling) is quite popular in Japan, and I even saw momos (steamed dumplings, very popular in Delhi) on the menu. After confirming the vegetarian options, I ordered yakisoba (Japanese stir-fried noodles). In India, we have very similar noodles, just with different names. It’s interesting to see how the same dishes exist in different countries under different names.
At a third Indian restaurant, I was delighted to see South Indian dishes on the menu. I ordered uttapam (a soft South Indian pancake made from rice and lentils), which came with sambar (a lentil-based soup with vegetables) and chutney (a traditional Indian sauce served with meals) . I also had gulab jamun (a soft, syrup-soaked Indian sweet) for dessert. I was genuinely happy to see Indian cuisines beyond karee, which is often associated mainly with North Indian food.
If you ever visit an Indian restaurant, I would highly recommend trying South Indian dishes like dosa, idli, and sambar, as well as Indian street foods such as momos, gol-gappe (pani puri), and pav bhaji.
The next article is about my Japanese food experiences in Tokyo — read it here.