Lost in a sea of sushi spots and metro maps, Joanne Karcz finds her footing – and her appetite – with the help of a food tour
I needed help. Feeling overwhelmed when planning my first trip to Japan, I turned to Kiwis Sue and Janice. As their Eating Georgia tour had exceeded my expectations, I signed up for their Eating Tokyo tour.
Limited to six guests, the five-day itinerary includes little-known local restaurants and small bars to showcase a range of Tokyo cuisine from scrumptious street food to high-end dining.
Our food experience begins in a kissaten, or traditional Japanese coffee shop. A robot waiter glides between simple wooden tables, a full breakfast tray resting on each of its four black shelves. In a high squeaky voice, it instructs me to retrieve my set breakfast meal of pancakes and a boiled egg (at least that’s what I think it’s saying). It’s simple fast food.
From robot cafés to standing bars, Joanne Karcz discovers Japan through its most beloved meals. Photo / Joanne Karcz
There’s a small wet towel rolled up on the tray. Janice explains we should use this oshibori to wipe our hands, not our face or neck and then fold it neatly after use.
After breakfast, we head off to a depachika. This, I’m told is a food hall in a department store basement. My Japanese vocabulary is increasing by the hour. We wander through displays of bright red tomatoes, the longest asparagus I’ve ever seen, wagyu beef and artistically presented bento boxes. The sweet treats have me reaching for my wallet. A massive red strawberry, carefully boxed, will set me back $10. The sampuru, or waxy plastic food models, however, are not for sale. They illustrate what’s available.
At lunch, we watch our chef coating prawns in a thin batter before deep frying them. I bite into the lacy crispy coating. It’s the freshest tempura I’ve tasted. Carrot, squid, eel and lotus roots follow.
A guided food tour offers an immersive taste of Tokyo, from street eats to fine dining. Photo / Joanne Karcz
The afternoon is free to explore and while some return to the Isetan department store for more shopping, I explore Aoyama Cemetery. On a bare patch of ground beside the headstones, a man practises his golf swing. A woman throws a ball to her dogs. With a population of around 37 million, free space in Tokyo is at a premium.
Each day follows a similar pattern. Breakfast, lunch, a free afternoon then dinner. We’re usually the only Westerners in the carefully chosen restaurants and little eateries.
The metro is the best way to get around Tokyo, and with a little coaching from Sue and Janice we quickly get the hang of it. Short lively pieces of music encourage people to board quickly when a train pulls in. Minoru Mukaiya, a Japanese keyboard player, composed over 100 of these jingles, with each station playing a different tune. On hearing their station tune, commuters who have been catching up on sleep know that they should alight.
One evening we walk to a local standing bar, which specialises in yakiton, skewered pork grilled over hot coals. We stand around a small, high round table having a pre-dinner drink and sample the rich pork belly and rather flavourless voice box cartilage. The last offering is chewy, slightly fatty and flavoursome and only once we’ve swallowed does Sue reveal we’ve just eaten pork rectum. It’s surprisingly good.
Janice explains how to order Yakiton during the Japan Food Tour. Photo / Joanne Karcz
We enjoy a seafood dinner in an izakaya, a type of Japanese pub. Starting with sashimi, we work our way up from the lighter coloured fish to the rich red tuna. The fresh raw fish melts in my mouth. Later I crunch through crispy deep-fried fish bones. This “fish hardware” goes well with a cold beer.
Everywhere we eat, we do as the locals do and place our bags and jackets in baskets or on the hooks provided. We rest our chopsticks on chopstick holders or fold our own rests from the paper sleeve that contained disposable chopsticks. It’s impolite to leave chopsticks sticking out of a bowl.
At dinner one night, Janice informs us that “Eating nigiri with your fingers is perfectly acceptable.” After carefully slicing fresh raw fish in front of us, the chef drapes each slice over a small, moulded oblong of rice. To savour the taste and feel of the fish on our tongues we are told to “tip the nigiri over, lightly dip the fish in soy sauce then deftly place the whole piece, fish-side down in your mouth”.
We learn that to fully enjoy the flavour of noodles we should slurp them. Slurping in Japan is acceptable and even encouraged. Enthusiastically slurping my udon noodles, droplets of the wholesome soup splatter on my shirt. Wearing white was a big mistake.
“Remember to eat with your eyes before tucking in,” instructs Sue when a tray of 16 colourful bite-sized portions of seasonal delicacies is placed before me. Japanese cuisine invokes all five senses. There’s the visual presentation of the meal, the rich aroma of the food and the crunch when biting through crispy tempura or fresh radish. Then there’s the different textures of each dish and, of course, the taste of each mouthful. Every dish is carefully prepared and presented.
At a traditional tea ceremony, the practised movements of our hosts mesmerise me. Sitting cross-legged on a tatami floor, we watch in silence as two kimono-clad women use deliberate calm and graceful movements when preparing our tea. Kneeling before a kettle suspended over a sunken hearth, one pours boiling water to make matcha green tea. Then the other kneels in front of me, bows and hands me a bowl of tea.
Japanese tea ceremonies are choreographed to invoke mindfulness and respect. Photo / Joanne Karcz
In contrast to the quiet tea ceremony, in the narrow streets of Tsukiji market, we weave our way past stalls filled with shellfish, fresh and dried seafood, dodging umbrellas as we go. We sample pickles, crackers, mochi and taiyaki (a fish-shaped sweet jaffle-like cake) in the covered Shotengai (arcades). In Kappabashi St (Kitchen St) we’re let loose to find the perfect knife, dish or chopsticks for preparing a Japanese meal back home.
One morning, at the Tokyo Cooking Studio, we finely chop leeks, coriander and other ingredients to mix into ground pork for a tasty gyoza (traditional Japanese dumpling) filling. All fingers and thumbs, I fold and pleat dough around the filling to form bite-sized gyoza. I carefully arrange the dumplings in a fry pan and when they are cooked, I invert the frying pan on to a plate to reveal a pretty spiral formed by the crisp golden gyoza.
Yuraki at her Tokyo Cooking School. Photo / Joanne Karcz
Free afternoons give me time to explore suburban back streets, chat with locals and discover hidden corners of Tokyo. In Roppongi Hills, I stumble across a giant Maman Spider Sculpture by Louise Bourgeois. A 360 view of Tokyo spreads out before me from the observation deck on the 52nd floor of the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower.
In Yoyogi Park, people picnic on blue tarpaulins. Their numbers, small now, will multiply in a few weeks when the cherry blossoms bloom. A man whose bald head and neck are covered in tattoos sits smoking outside a tattoo parlour in Harajuku. He tells me he keeps two long-necked turtles as pets. At Nori Shrine, I follow protocol and wash my hands before throwing a coin into the offering box, ringing the bell, bowing and clapping twice and bowing again.
On this tour, I’ve not only enjoyed a range of Japanese dishes from fast food to high-end cuisine. I’ve also conquered the metro, wandered local streets and experienced Japanese culture first-hand.
