Food Tours · Tour

Wagashi in Ginza, Monja in Tsukishima, Yakitori Under the Tracks

Three and a half hours across three districts that would take a visitor a week to connect, with the subway fares included and the guide doing the navigating. You meet at the bronze lion outside Mitsukoshi Ginza, up the A7 exit. Ginza is the expensive end of Tokyo, and the first thing you eat there is wagashi, the traditional confectionery served with tea: bean paste, rice flour, seasonal shapes, and much less sugar than the Western equivalent. There may be a stop at the Itoya stationery store, which runs to twelve floors of paper. Then the subway to Tsukishima, a reclaimed island in the bay whose main street is lined end to end with monja restaurants. Monja-yaki is Tokyo's own dish and a strange one: a loose batter you cook yourself on the table griddle, corral into a ring, let catch, and then scrape up in small amounts with a metal spatula the size of a teaspoon. It is as much a procedure as a meal, and doing it with someone who knows how saves a lot of guesswork. The last stop is Yakitori Alley in Yurakucho, the run of grill counters wedged under the railway arches where trains pass overhead every ninety seconds and salarymen have been drinking after work since the 1950s. Yakitori with sake or beer, and every place has its own tare, the sauce pot that gets topped up and never emptied. Eight guests at most, with two subway tickets and two drinks included. Guided in English or Japanese. Minimum age twelve; alcohol only for over-20s. Every venue is locally owned. Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free cannot be accommodated. Moderate walking.