Holiday in Japan with DS who only eats "safe" food

[Jasper6]

I am looking at a holiday in Japan next year, however my 11 year old DS only eats a very limited range of food due to ADHD and would prefer to starve rather than eat food he is not comfortable with
Does anyone have any advice, or should I just accept he will only eat burgers from McDonald's and sneak some bread and spread he likes into our luggage. Also rule out going to rural parts of the country that will not cater for him? Are there any English shops there with branded English food? Any advice would be great.

We went a couple of years ago with DD, who is a v v v fussy eater - she was fine - although we were in Tokyo
She also didn't go hungry in South Korea!

Took a school trip there with lots of fussy teenagers and lived there 20 years ago.

7-11 will be your friend. You can get plain sandwiches and ready meals as well as yoghurts and crisps. Delicious fruit is ready available as well as vending machines with all kinds of delights.

sometimes the food in Japan can stretch even the most adventurous of palates. Raw egg white as a salad dressing?

I love the curry houses and there are buffers as well where you could choose the foods he likes.

hotel breakfasts are delicious but I love the sweetness of Japanese eggs.

How would he cope with chicken katsu sandwiches? Chicken escalope fried in breadcrumbs sometimes with lettuce and often not with a slightly spicy sauce. Normally on white bread which is slightly sweeter than UK bread and very soft. I think it’s because the bread is often made of milk. Every konbini and supermarket has them and they’re delicious.

That said, Japan is brilliant for showing you what the food looks like before you order in a restaurant or buy at the konbini or supermarket. Bento boxes also have plenty of pictures so you aren’t surprised by the choice.

Every konbini has a selection of ready meals and he might like the American plain sausage with tomato sauce pasta. The konbini tended to have more pasta as a quick ready meal.

I didn’t look for Western food in the supermarkets. However, there are loads of Italian restaurants if that’s a safe choice? I don’t know what they’re like because I was eating so much ramen and sushi.

Would he be so intrigued by self-closing jam jars (honestly) that he’d manage new things? Sorry if that’s too personal a question.

I’m not a huge trains fan, but the bullet trains were wonderful as was the Kyoto railway museum. Even just wandering around the stations is interesting. If he likes any characters/anime, then the basement of Tokyo Station (character street) is worth a visit too.

If he eats plain white rice then you'll be fine. I would take lots of cereal bars or similar, whatever he likes, so that he can snack in the day.

We've travelled pretty extensively since dd was a baby. She was very unadventurous when she was little so once she was weaned, we mostly looked for Indian restaurants and asked them to do a plate of plain rice with slices of cucumber for her.

We went to Japan when she was a teen. She was a bit more adventurous with her food by then but was (and still is) a vegan who doesn't like anything too spicy.

I'm racking my brains to try and remember what she ate but I can't, but I do know that we didn't have problems finding food she liked.

I agree that it will be fine. Pack a supply of safe foods that can go through customs and then if he’ll eat rice, fries, a burger etc then you’ll be fine. Just make sure you intersperse visits to rural areas and to cities so that he can get a square meal and you can buy supplies and snacks for days when you’re a bit more remote. In cities there will be plenty of things to eat. The even sell fries in some chain kaiten sushi places.

Do you know if you can bring bread and spread into the country in your luggageJ?

Do not do this!

That's how diseases get spread around the world.

Take him to a Japanese restaurant and see if he likes sushi etc. I can buy it in my local supermarket.

You sound a bit naive OP, sorry.

I travel to Japan with work a lot. It is an incredible country. But I hate the food, which came as a big surprise as I like western Japanese food (sushi, sashimi etc). I just can’t stand the consistency of a lot of it, but we are taken to a lot of formal restaurants with set menus, so hopefully it will be better if you have more freedom. I snuck a few McDonald’s and find it fine, lots of white rice and snacks from 7/11. I always lose a bit of weight! Sorry I know that isn’t what you want to hear but I think you will need to rely on western fast food, rice / noodles (minus tofu if he isn’t a fan, as that is in a lot of stuff!) and sandwiches.

But seriously it is an incredible county. Would recommend a trip to Hiroshima by the way as I found that really amazing.

@MariaLuna That's how diseases get spread around the world

That's just not true 😂😂. You will be able to take spreads into Japan. You can't take fresh food like fruit, veg and meat but you can check with the Japanese gov. Website.

I've been to Japan a few times and I don't think you will have a problem in the big cities. I'd never consider myself a fussy eater but I can't say I'm a find of some of the more traditional Japanese dishes. There are 7-11 and similar everywhere and there are plenty of places apart from macdonalds that sell western food.
Many department stores have food halls in the basement where you can buy all sorts of foods often including hot ready to eat food. You will be able to try food you like while your son can choose something he likes. You can often get a breaded chicken fillet if that's what he likes.

One thing to watch out for is that there are quite strict rules on what medication you can take into Japan. I think some drugs that are used for adhd might be tricky. I don't know the details but it's worth checking.

We love Japan. Everyone is friendly and helpful and everywhere is lovely and clean. It's busy but it's ordered.

The trains are amazing. There is a Hello Kitty train.

There is a big chain restaurant with conveyor belt sushi and one of the dishes is basically a chicken nugget on a mound of rice. It's actually very tasty. They also did little dishes of chips. This wasn't a tourist restaurant

Food is cheap in Japan so if your son doesn't like something then it won't matter too much.

Japan will be easy as every restaurant will try to cook to order for kids. Aim for family restaurants and get lots of traditionally plated ‘side dishes’. That way he can try a bit of everything and there’s no mixing of food. McDonalds and KFC and other fast food places are very different there so won’t necessarily be safe foods. If he will eat rice, boiled or steamed veg, egg rolls, fries it’ll be fine. Also don’t rule out tuna and salmon shashimi - it’s extremely neutral when made fresh and a good option if he’ll eat smoked salmon etc.

I think it would depend on what his safe foods are and how specific they are. Does he eat any chips or just mcDonalds and one specific brand at home, a specific brand of bread etc etc? Products have different ingredients depending on where they are manufactured/sold so there's the possibility of a product tasking different in different places even if it looks the same.

@Jasper6 There are restaurants serving western food eg Italian. If DC really wants to go he might have to try a few new things. They have plastic replicas of the food on a plate so you can see what it should be!

As for railways: apart from the Shinkansen, there’s many great trains. To plan you need the book Japan By Rail. It’s your bible. We took a monorail out of Tokyo. Went on the private Enoden line to Hase and Kamakura and returned on conventional rail to Tokyo. Rail is a great way to travel. You might need to avoid traditional hotels. Plus we visited some areas where there isn’t any western food much at all. So you need to plan. Lonely Planet is another useful resource.

Am also a very fussy eater as was DS and we somehow made it around Japan. Going to the shops and trying to find even one thing to eat became quite a fun part of the experience!

There is a bread. Also salmon/fish and rice in banana leaves and loved the bento boxes for trains. There are pictures of the food and these weird ‘plasticky’ stuck foods in the display cabinets which have been gloss painted. But at least you can see what you are getting!

Vending machines everywhere.

MacDonalds, lots of these! Also rice and ramen, if you eat meat than there are options for plainish meat and rice.

@Jasper6 I forgot to say that we ate a couple of times in department stores in Tokyo. One had a choice of restaurants on the top floor and an amazing food hall in the basement. Look up what they offer and you should find a wider choice. You really won’t have to eat just salmon, rice and bread. In Kyoto we ate purely Japanese food and indeed elsewhere in the country but Tokyo has a wide choice.

My top tip. You can’t go 5 minutes in Japan without finding a convenience store (also good for toilets!) They sell a whole array of not-to-unfamiliar bread products. It you can find a couple of new safe foods there then you can probably re-find it throughout your travels.

Main ones are 7-11, Family Mart and Lawson.

Also McDonald’s fries seem to be largely universal. You’ll be able to find either chips and plain rice in most places.

We went with my son who has allergies to nuts, sesame and shellfish. I was very nervous as we don't speak Japanese. We were fine in Tokyo (7/11s and McDonalds sadly) but we limited the Japan part of our trip to 4 days as a stopover to New Zealand. Is it likely the thought of the trip would help him work to increase his safe foods in advance? It was fab place to visit though.