Gluten Free Crepe in Harajuku

Harajuku is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Tokyo for fashion and anything kawaii (cute). Though I barely survive walking through the busy Takeshita Street, the young local enjoy shopping, while holding crepes on their hands.

Harajuku by David Kosmos Smith

In early 2014, yet another crepe shop opened in Harajuku, and finally this time, it was a gluten free one!

Located at a small side street of Takeshita Street, this small shop specializes in crepe made of rice flour. Oh, just to clarify, when you talk about crepes in Japan, it may be (quite) different from authentic French crêpes. We are usually talking about things like this:

Last time I visited, they still didn't have English menu, but they have pretty basic menu. If you are not sure, you can probably go for banana + whip cream + chocolate... The rice crepe seems to take a bit more time than wheat crepe, but it's worth the wait. This soft and slightly chewy crepe is an excellent snack after a light meal. (It's definitely more filling than wheat crepe, so be ready!)

Check out its Facebook page and add it to your travel itinerary. 

Gluten Free pancakes options

It's been too long since I updated this blog, but we are still trying hard with gluten free life in Japan!

Today's topic is pancakes.

"Pancake Mountain" by SteffanyZphotgraphy

Last year, one of our friends brought us back "XO Baking Co. Pancake and Waffle Mix" from Canada, after his business trip.  We loved this easy & sweet (hint of vanilla flavor!) pancakes, but unfortunately it seems it's a bit hard to get this in Japan.

XO Baking Co. Pancake and Waffle Mix

Then we tried Japanese rice flour based pancake mix. Sadly, we were spoiled with XO's sweet vanilla flavor, so we felt like we were eating cardboard :(  I think it was probably because there was a bit too much baking soda in the mix.

Well, if the ready-made pancake mix doesn't work, I should just make it from scratch. This simple cookpad recipe turned out pretty amazing! All you need is

Rice Flour 100g
Sugar / cane sugar 30g
Baking powder 4g
1 egg
Milk 80g
Oil 1Table spoon

Try not to pour too much batter in the pan -- you'll get the right texture when it's thinner. I love using cane sugar to avoid too much sweetness and to get mild but enough sweetness. We are hoping to try this with a bit of vanilla essence next time.

Happy cooking!

Rice Pizza?

I came across this video today (sorry, it's all in Japanese).

Basically, they mixed leftover rice with egg to make pizza crust. (Egg kind of worked like glue, I guess.) The sauce they used in the video is probably not gluten free, but if you could replace this with regular tomato sauce you would eat, then it is a quick and easy rice pizza!

Trying out gluten free pizza recipe

The recipe I tried today is this one:
米粉ピザ（小麦不使用　アレルギーＯＫ） (Rice flour pizza (no wheat, allergy free)


In this recipe, we use potato starch to make the dough sticky. Potato starch (片栗粉 katakuriko) is a very commonly sold ingredient in pretty much any supermarkets. I never knew that heating up potato starch with water eventually makes transparent jelly-ish stuff.

What went well: 

+ Used oven instead of fish grill like suggested in the recipe. I tried bake with 180c for 10 minutes, but eventually raised it to 200c for 3 minutes. 

What went wrong: 

- Maybe put a little too much potato starch. If you like your dough sticky, maybe. But I prefer my pizza more crispy. 

- Definitely needed more rice flour for my hands and cutting board. I probably lost fair bit of dough on my hands.

Cereal without Malt Extract

Malt extract (麦芽エキス) - this is an ingredient that I'd never ever paid attention to, until I heard that it is commonly used in cereals. Malt extract is most of the time made of barley. Although according to Coeliac UK, "(p)roducts containing barley malt extract in low levels that meet the Codex standard can be tolerated by most people with coeliac disease", we have no idea if Japanese products meet this standard. And why not avoid it if we can.


So far we found this cereal from Nippon Food Manufacturer, or more commonly called Nissshoku. This "Premium Corn Flake, Premium Plain (日食プレミアムコーンフレーク　最上質プレーン)" is made of organic corn, organic sugar, and salt. According to the product website, it could contain trace of wheat as it is manufactured in same factory.


Be careful that other flavors (white chocolate, strawberry etc.) of the same series do contain malt extract. (See photo on the left.)


A box of this cereal costs about 300 - 400 yen (3 to 4 USD). So far I think I've been finding this brand at somewhat higher-end supermarkets, like the ones in department stores. However it looks like you can easily order them online as well.

Happy gluten free breakfast :)

Gluten Free Beer?

Probably by pure chance, such thing exists in this country full of gluten. It is Kirin Nodogoshi <Nama> (キリン のどごし<生>).

Nogodoshi Nama

Well, to be exact, Kirin Nodogoshi <Nama> (キリン のどごし<生>) is a beer-like beverage, called happoshu （発泡酒）. To those who are not familiar with happoshu, it literally means "sparkling alcohol", but indicates beer-like drink with lower malt content. Low-malt drinks are taxed less than regular beer, and hence happoshu tends to be somewhat cheaper than beer.

Ingredients listed on the can of Nodogoshi Nama are hops, saccharides, soy protein, and yeast extract.

According to Kirin Customer Center (yep, I actually sent an email to them), it does not contain wheat or barley like normal beer does. However it may contain trace of wheat as it is produced in the same factory where other regular beers are produced.

It is less bitter than regular beer, in my opinion, but it definitely has beer-like flavour. My grandpa has been happily drinking it since he started to live mostly on a pension.

Note that not all happoshu are gluten-free. In fact, most of them are made of wheat or barley. This is one of a few kinds that happens to be gluten free.

You should be able to find Nodogoshi Nama in most of supermarkets, convenient stores etc., as you may have seen its ads everywhere. Happoshu in general, however, is often not sold at restaurants unfortunately. I haven't really seen many BYOB restaurants in Japan, but if you become friends with master of your favorite restaurants, maybe one day, they might let you bring your own gluten-free alcohol... ?

Why this blog

"Say sauce has wheat in it?!" "Corn flakes are not gluten free?"

When I talk about foods with my boyfriend who has celiac disease, it is always full of surprises. He has recently moved to Japan, where apparently nobody really pays attention whether what you are eating is gluten free or not. 

I lived in the States for about 5 years and have seen "gluten free" foods in supermarkets or have met friends who need to go gluten free. But ever since I moved back to Japan, I almost forgot about it... I've never seen gluten free label in Japanese supermarkets or restaurants. All I've seen is a tiny label that often says "contains wheat", but that's about it. 

Going gluten free in Japan has been, so far, much more difficult than I originally thought. My boyfriend still doesn't read Japanese, so I should be able to tell whether it's safe for him to eat or not by reading ingredients. But I don't have enough knowledge about what actually contains gluten (it's not just wheat, you know)! 

It is said Tokyo is one of the most "foodie" cities -- it has 80,000 restaurants, which is like 3.5 more than New York City. And yet it has been a bit tiring to eat out or simply buying grocery in this mega city. 

I'm starting this blog to document what I learn throughout this journey with him.