In a metropolis like Tokyo, the place each metro cease has its personal distinctive musical jingle, you higher believe that neighborhoods have different landscapes of food. For our first few days within the megacity, we stayed within the Shinbashi (sometimes spelled Shimbashi) neighborhood and did a meals tour of the area. The space is known for salarymen consuming at little locations after a day on the office. The tour we picked touted narrow alleys full of meals stalls and yaki-tori sticks under the train lines. In short, this Tokyo meals tour was a good introduction to Japanese meals and a distinctive view of Tokyo.
We have written about how we like meals excursions early in our trip. We booked this tour for the night of our arrival, each as a way of fighting jet lag and to get a big serving to of knowledge about Japanese meals earlier than having to do it on our own.
Japan meals within the western world is probably going most characterised by sushi. However the delicacies is native and varied far past uncooked fish on rice. And for weirdos like us, who don’t like sushi, we were happy to see lots of variety.
Why take a meals tour in Shinbashi?
Only a few metro stops on the Tokyo ring from the main station, Shinbashi is definitely fairly handy for vacationers with out being overly crowded by tourists. The neighborhood was crowded, however with Japanese locals going about their day. The space is characterised by the large variety of offices close by rather than any big sight.
We learned that meals is simply about everywhere in Japan, however often within the most unlikely locations (to us anyway). Sure, solely a flip from the main street is a community of alleys abounding in little restaurants.
More surprising, you’ll often discover networks of even smaller eating locations down a few ranges from the road under main workplace buildings. These often open up solely at 6pm when the employees stream down into them. Over all this was a good begin to learn about Japanese food.
>>Read about the meals tour we took in Tokyo’s Meguro neighborhood.
Shinbashi Food Tour
We booked a meals tour through Viator, although sadly I can’t appear to discover the precise one anymore. Our information met us simply outside of the train station, after which she took us on a visit across the neighborhood experiencing different foods.
Food is everywhere, even within the basement
The first cease on our Tokyo meals tour was down within the basement of an enormous workplace building. We were a bit early, so there weren’t many individuals yet. “Little restaurants” like these means there’s often 6 or eight seats round a bar and that’s it.
Here we tried a dish called Oden which concerned greens and tofu stewed for a very very lengthy time in broth. If you want this kind of thing, then it was fairly tasty and filling. Apparently the broth is used and developed for a week earlier than being began again, so different days could style different.
Next we walked a quantity of streets to our subsequent stop. Our information was a younger woman from Mexico who has been living in Tokyo for a lot of years, and she had some interested insights to what it’s like to live in Japan as a foreigner, which was fascinating.
We heard about the practice of eating locations placing plastic renditions of their meals on show outside as a visible menu. This got here in handy in a few locations all through our journey to Japan when there was no English and we could merely level at one of many plastic menu choices within the window.
We learned that comfort shops like FamilyMart and 7-11 are ubiquitous in Japan and tremendous popular. Also we learned that these locations even have some hot food. This knowledge saved us a quantity of times all through the journey when we wanted a fast and easy meal.
Grilled Fish and Sake
The fish grill, our subsequent stop, was extra formal than the meals stand and had us sitting round a low open grill with coals constructed under a set of screens. Our information ordered some fish and veggies and proceeded to grill them.
She got distracted a few times speaking to us and a waitress was there with a pair of chopsticks to flip the fish. Having fish burn would have been some sort of fake pas as I perceive it.
There was loads of interesting fish here, together with Fugu, eel, and a quantity of types of fishcake. Fugu is the well-known toxic blowfish that’s lethal if ready wrong. (They introduced that to us fully cooked, fortunately not trusting us with it.) Ali thought that was the higher of the fish options.
The different factor we learned at this cease was all about Sake, which is apparently simply the generic phrase for alcohol in Japanese. We tried a quantity of types as diverse as any wine.
Yakitori: Meat on Sticks
Another short stroll discovered us at a restaurant tucked beneath the train tracks. A fast look within the window revealed a grill and an array of meat on sticks. Jackpot!
Yakitori roughly means chicken-grilled and usually implies on-a-stick and a common type of restaurant open within the evenings. We learned about this style of restaurant because the trains above occasionally set the place to shaking.
Sticks come both with a sauce or merely salted. We tried chicken meat, pork belly, and a few good little inexperienced peppers. Our information additionally ordered some pork that you scoop up with cabbage and a few kind of soup.
We additionally requested for an English menu and realized quickly that the Japanese eat extra bits of the animal than we were used to. From pork rectum to chicken hearts and cartilage. Not our factor at all, however when you can order “normal things” that’s our favourite type of place. We liked this place well sufficient to come again the subsequent night to try more.
When is a fish not a fish?
The final cease was dessert which was a Taiyaki place close to our hotel. Taiyaki means grilled-sea-bream (which is a type of fish), however on this occasion it actually means a cracker-like dough within the form of a fish filled with candy bean paste or custard.
It was enjoyable to watch the employee fill large iron platters to make 6 fish at a time. There were sufficient people ready for this dish that they were gone the second they were out of the mold, so when you get handed a crispy dough fish shape, watch out because it’s most likely piping hot.
What did we consider the meals tour
For our first night in Tokyo, it was a actually good experience. We got to discover our hotel’s neighborhood and got to know some locations to try. One of the worst issues to have occur in journey is to wander hungry not discovering one factor to eat. This wouldn’t be an issue that neighborhood.
The tour provided loads of food. We got a quantity of alcoholic drinks as well. The price is higher than many different meals excursions in Europe, however Japan is an costly place to live and most issues involving people are simply expensive. It was fairly standard price-wise for what we noticed across the country.
The tour information was very educated about the native meals and had lots of interesting facts and tales to inform us. The meals was delicious, and I’d definitely recommend this tour.
Be conscious that the stops and exact meals on the tour can vary, so not each tour would be the identical or match what we ate on our tour. But I think you’ll have enjoyable no matter what!
Who is that this meals tour good for?
I would recommend this tour…
…if you are staying in or close to Shinbashi.
…if you need to see a half of Tokyo that isn’t crawling with foreign vacationers like busy Shibuya.
…if you need a broad view of Japanese meals and won’t be disappointed to not see Sushi.
Have you been to Japan? Did you take a meals tour in Tokyo?
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