Some of Our Favorite Tokyo Neighborhoods

We called Japan’s capital city home for five years, we were married there and Fortuna was first conceived cruising on bikes through its streets. In a way of ‘being’ with our friends who are still struggling though the global pandemic we invite you to eat with us, Itadakimasu

Ueno is a perfect place for market lovers. In addition to having a sprawling shopping section it has a fantastic fish market. We especially loved tucking away off the street into one of the standing bars and slurping up oysters, sipping sake and watching the street traffic before rejoining the shoppers. Uenos is also one of the best places for our beloved springtime hanami night parties and for quiet museum days.

Ginza is known for its glamorous brands and some of the best shopping Tokyo has to offer. It is also the area retaining old geisha traditions and has incredible secret restaurants that have built reputations for decades. A good friend of ours would regularly travel to Tokyo from Singapore for work and when they were in town we always feasted. This is an image of our last dinner together before we left Japan. Shabu Shabu is a Japanese meal of thinly sliced premium meat and vegetables flash cooked at the table using boiling water. This restaurant specializes in these incredible copper pots and everyone around the tables dips or 'shabu shabu' (onomatopoeic) sharing the hot water.

Nakano is one of our favorite spots for its labyrinth shopping center filled with tiny 'maniaku' stores lining twisting hallways that rise up three stories. You can find the most obscure manga, luxury handmade watches, perfect used musical equipment and collectors toys. Outside of the shopping center is another labyrinth of restaurants and specialty shops. Nakano is also home to one of our celebration restaurants. When we wanted to commemorate something we often went to have yakisakana, grilled fish and seafood. The restaurant itself is an open two story wooden building with a sand pit and open wood fire on the first level. A bar makes a semicircle around the fire pit where fish of all kinds are salted, skewered and stuck into the sand, slowly cooking against the flames.

Ikebukuro is a neighborhood with more diversity than many of the larger neighborhoods that compose inner Tokyo. We spent time regularly in this area for the last year we lived in Japan. Irezumi is traditional Japanese tattooing, the imagery is very specific and so is the technique. Authentic Irezumi is completed with hand tools, a long bamboo stick is modified with a set of different ink needles and the artist introduces the ink into the skin without the assistance of any other equipment or electricity. The artist that I worked with for my Irezumi lives in Osaka, an important center of the Irezumi art form. He lived in Tokyo to met with clients one weekend of every month and when he craved food from home he had okonomiyaki. Basically a cabbage pancake, many shops in Osaka include yakisoba noodles and runny eggs. Crowned with dancing katsuobushi fish flakes, kewpie mayonnaise and aonori seaweed.

Tsukiji has been in the news frequently since it underwent the monumental effort of moving its operations to accommodate Olympic Games construction. For the last few years we living in Tokyo we lived a leisurely 10 minute bike ride from the original marketplace. In addition to spending many nights at its sake soaked sushi counters, Tsukiji is the home to our second 'celebration' restaurant a place we go when it matters. A wooden two story building from another era glows quietly as it bears witness to the Shinto shrine beloved by the market's fish mongers. The current sushi chef is a continuation in a line of masters and a house music DJ. If you love sushi and the ancient culture it carries with each bite, there is no better place in Tokyo to enjoy it than here. As friends of the chef and house music lovers, happiness was a long meal in one of their private tatami rooms and going dancing afterwards. In between mountains of sashimi and sushi platters, he would send us *drooling* jaw dropping, back of the house favorites like these fish heads.

Shimokitazawa is a really fun neighborhood. It is youthful and quirky, much like the tourist mecca Harajuku, pastry and cocktails, vintage clothing and obscure record shops. Just below one of the train station exits hides one of the best yakitori stalls in Tokyo in our experience. Built into one of the permanent stalls in the winding open air marketplace, this spot offers excellent skewers of a variety of offal and premium cuts which we love...and if you ask... they have this soup - soft tofu, pickled daikon, chicken hearts and liver slow cooked all day and topped with crunchy fresh green onions.

To be continued…

Sienna Trapp BowieMay 21, 2021Comment