NRT ANA NH Business Lounge: Shower, Fresh made Vegetarian Food Option? & Restaurants?

In addition to oatmeal, you might want to buy some fruit and nuts at NRT to help tide you over. It looks like you can also bring personal amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables through SIN so you could consume that right after landing at NRT. Are mostly raw foods considered as freshly prepared? Not sure fruit and veg make it pass the NRT transit security checkpoint though that's usually a function of customs? http://www.ava.gov.sg/NR/rdonlyres/D...ure_210510.pdf

Can you eat more while in SIN and SJC? You shouldn't have an issue meeting your dietary needs around SJC area thanks to many Indian restaurants which are well versed with different types of vegetarians. Perhaps search those out and make that the first stop after arrival?

Sorry I've been up late packing bags. And huge huge thanks to all. FT and all FTers are the best

Here's the time:

I am carrying some Oatmeal and Similar stuff. I will read through all of the suggestions above and make notes. Too late in BOM, got to sleep

Most fruits cannot be brought into Japan from SE Asian countries, though pineapples, coconuts and durians are apparently ok.

http://www.maff.go.jp/pps/j/guidance...eaflet_en4.pdf

Not sure how quarantine will work since the OP is in transit at NRT. The OP might be able to buy nuts but there won't be any chance to buy fresh fruits during the layover in NRT.

SJC is the OP's destination as far as I can tell so he/she shouldn't have any problem once there.

I wonder if there is such a thing as an employee or airline worker cafeteria within NRT. After all, the hundreds if not thousands of daily workers at the airport have to eat somewhere cheaply, and cheap might ironically suggest cooked from raw, bulk, fresh ingredients compared to the pricier processed menus for transiting passengers.

Only thinking of this because I recall a thread on folks discovering the "employee cafeteria" at HNL airport down an obscure corridor, but it happens to be within the secure area and allowable for non-airport staff to access, and apparently cheap and decent local food to boot...

OP - as a South Indian I can sympathize with your plight; but you are no doubt aware that fresh food is going to be very hard to come by in any airport - not impossible but hard. My suggestion is that you evaluate really how fresh the food has to be.

As an aside, asking about south indian food in NRT is equivalent to asking about sashimi in MAA. A very, very long shot. I would be doubtful even if I found something that purported to be that in NRT.

As an aside, I know the NH lounge (at least one of them) has a noodle bar. So the question is are any of the broths they use actually vegetarian, and can they whip up something vegetarian for OP? I personally really liked their offerings but then again I have no restrictions on animal products or processed foods...

Unfortunately commonly soup for udon (うどん), soba (蕎麦), soumen (素麺), etc. are made from soup stock made from dried bonito or dried kelp. Also, some think miso soup is fermented soy bean (miso, 味噌) dissolved (yes, I am a chemist, not a pharmacist for those speak Queen’s English ) in hot water. But miso soup is commonly made from soup stock made from dried bonito or dried kelp then miso is dissolved.

I do not know how vegans treat dried kelp, but soba/udon soup or miso soup is not necessary vegan. My understanding is that there are different definitions for vegitarian so I will leave it to individual needs.

As explained, the noodle stocks are not vegetarian.

Usually I would suggest plain udon and soy sauce for a vegetarian but I'm not sure if the OP will eat soy sauce, let alone miso (both are fermented food stuffs)

The ANA lounge doesn't have very good food.

However, they have small sandwiches. The only edible type is vegetarian. Tomato and other greens, I think.

The noodle bar now has a Japanese curry. I tried some just for the hell of it. Not very good but it was vegetarian or maybe the meat was missing from my sampling.

The blocks of roux used to make Japanese curry feature (with very few, very rare exceptions) meat extract.
Not vegetarian and heavily processed.

Thank you all for such detailed and brilliant inputs. I read some of this before flying but was wondering how to communicate with them and ask.

I found this lovely post (2 posts) with translations and had one of the noodle bowls with help from the TRANSLATION sticker on this blog.
http://veganmiam.com/airports-and-lo...satellite-no-5

Now, whether or not the broth/ stock had some kind of dried animal/ fish sources, I am not really sure. The staff seemed to understand and followed the tips/ instructions from the Vegan Mami blog.

I did carry some food from BOM and had it at airport. I figured carrying any more would make it unfresh so had some oatmeal on hand.

Luckily the common "Business Class" lounge at SIN had really nice hot south indian food. Filled myself up with that, some fruit and yogurt as well.
High circulation and huge lounge with lot of people. Here there was a quick GATE security but its safer as you are closer to the plane and airline staff see you are there.

At NRT, I barely had 1hr 20 min and lost some time at the transit security check. I hate this IN-TRANSIT security that airports are practicing, especially not even closer to the gate.

With this lost time I rushed to ANA lounge and got a pager from the shower area section for when one opens up. Then go to the other side where the food & lounging options exist. This place was packed.. and I used vegan mami's translation to try some noodle bowl (hoping it was safe).

In the middle of that got paged and ran to shower area, quick shower, came back and my table and bowl was intact and finished it.

Grabbed 1-2 small pieces of the veg sandwich (showed staff translation). And pretty much rushed to flight to SJC at gate E51 and was pretty much one of the last people to board.

SJC was a breeze of an airport to clear through immigration/ customs etc.

I'd love to know if we can hack into finding these Employee/ Staff food places

I am not south indian but those foods are usually freshly prepared and lighter on the digestive system instead of re-heated mughalai / paneer related curries.

I am making note of all this for any future transits through NRT or Japan.

I had some nuts as well while I was on land at the airports.

Because I am not coming from Tokyo but have 2 flight segments before Tokyo -BOM and SIN.

I am going to make a note of this with regard to contacting ANA lounge ahead of time and asking them.
There is a lot to be learnt about the above subject as I go forward.

Thanks for your detailed response xmlsoa.

Since you had stated that you wished to avoid processed wheat AND food that was not freshly prepared I had assumed that udon wouldn't have been of much interest to you. For this reason I focused on offering advice regarding standard rice.

I have no idea what the ANA lounge's vegetable based noodle stock is (kombu and shiitake, perhaps, that would be a best case scenario)
Did you see any signs saying that a vegetarian soup stock was available, or was it just from the information on the blog?

Vegetarian vegetable stock to have with noodles is not very easy to find in Japan so unless the ANA lounge wants to specifically cater to vegans, vegetarians and those with fish allergies it's a surprise to me that they would have such a thing.

If you do return, please take a look through this thread for options outside the airport.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/japan...d-threads.html

Actually, your advise was perfect and is noted and super welcome. It was just so tight of a connection that I had no option but to grab and go with whatever I could quickly get. Hopefully, it was clean.

The blog writer also mentioned it was buck wheat.. so maybe it was less white flour (I hope). Hopefully I minimized by "exposure".

I am not sure how accurate or safe the broth were and hopefully this thread and experiences from this trip will help the next trip I take or some veggie wishes to take through NRT.

Luckily I ate my fill at SIN in a common Business Class lounge with hot veg south indian food options. I had some nuts when on ground.

Given your circumstances (and without the rice option) this would have been the route I would have taken - except I would have seasoned the soba with soy sauce (or taken my own condiment... a walnut sauce perhaps as both miso and gochujang are on your no no list) .
The buckwheat ratio in the noodles you ate would have been a minimum of 30% buckwheat to 70% wheat but it could well have been a bit higher.

I like freshly milled and prepared soba noodles very much and hunt them out when I'm in Japan (I even took a class in the subject on a recent trip where I was lucky enough to get one to one tuition). I'm afraid I'm dubious that the stock was vegetarian just because generally (and there are some rare exceptions) soba noodles just don't taste that great without dashi.

Hope I'm wrong and that the ANA lounge can indeed accommodate the needs of vegetarians in transit.

The NH lounge has several vegetable rolled sushi, rice triangles wrapped in seaweed with pickled plum "umeboshi." Miso soup is animal-product free sometimes and sometimes has fish-derived product in it if it has been prepared with dashi soup base. You may be able to get a bowl of plain rice or udon without the broth (broth may be made with dashi soup base) from the noodle/curry counter, and then add soy sauce or eat it plain; fruit cocktail with jelly cubes (jelly cubes in Japan are generally made with agar agar, a seaweed derivative, not animal based). There are fruit and vegetable juices in the cold case. I recall apples and pears being available as well last month.

I feel reasonably confident in saying 99% of the miso soup you get in Japanese restaurants has fish-based dashi in it. Yes, supermarkets sell miso without dashi, but that's just so you can add in your preferred amount while making it yourself. Vegetarian konbu (kelp) dashi is rarely seen outside temples.

And re: the OP's dietary requirements, if he's OK with South Indian food then he must be OK with fermented foods, since the batter for idlis, dosas etc is prepared through fermentation.