|

Fat And Furious: Department Store Hopping in Ginza

a group of colorful desserts on a black surface

***This is part 5 of my “Fat and Furious” trip report detailing a recent trip to Japan which included stops in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Matsuyama***

1. Introduction
2. Star Alliance First Class Lounge at LAX
3. Singapore Airlines Suites Class Los Angeles to Tokyo
4. Conrad Tokyo
5. Eating Tokyo Part 1 – Department Store Hopping in Ginza
6. Funaya Ryokan In Matsuyama
7. Living The Onsen Life In Matsuyama
8. The Ritz-Carlton Kyoto
9. Eating Kyoto – The Search for Matcha and Geisha
10. Kaiseki Dinner at 3-Michelin Star Kikunoi Honten
11. The Peninsula Tokyo
12. Eating Tokyo Part 2 – Maids, Robots, and Cosplay
13. Eating Tokyo Part 3 – Cherry Blossoms and THE BEST STEAK EVER
14. ANA Business Class Lounge at NRT
15. ANA Business Class Tokyo to San Jose

_______________________________

Enough airplane and hotel food – we had landed in Japan and it was time to really chow down.

After failing to wake up at the break of dawn to visit Tsukiji Fish Market, we decided to delay our visit until the end of the trip when we returned to Tokyo. With a full day now at our disposal and a more-than-full stomach from the hotel breakfast, we needed to walk around to work up an appetite. And walk we did, covering about 10+ miles all around the Ginza district. The main strip in Ginza is just a short 10-minute walk from the Conrad Tokyo.

tokyo ginza 2

tokyo ginza 1

It appeared that most buildings only had a single occupant, which must be quite the status symbol to have a brick-and-mortar store on Ginza Street.

tokyo ginza uniqlo

An hour before the Apple store was scheduled to open, a line had already formed halfway down the block.

tokyo ginza apple store

Many of the buildlings featured cool designs, including the Mikimoto building.

tokyo ginza mikimoto

And we ran into this guy, who was absolutely loving the attention. But as much as I enjoyed this scene, right meow all I could think about was eating again.

tokyo ginza street cat

Even though the US Dollar was extremely strong at the moment, neither of us had any urge to buy anything at the name-brand stores. So after some light window shopping we started our department store crawl since we heard that these were some of the best places to find great food. First up, Mitsukoshi.

tokyo ginza mitsukoshi

In the basement level of basically every department store is the food court. And we aren’t talking about your run of the mill food court in your average shopping mall. You know, the ones that have a Sbarro, Auntie Anne’s, and if you’re really lucky, a Panda Express.

No, the food courts in Japanese department stores are an attraction in their own right, and feature some serious gourmet eats. After taking the escalator to the basement floor, first thing we ran into was a beautiful display of colorful mochi that looked too pretty to eat.

tokyo ginza mochi

Japanese people sure have a sweet tooth and also like cute things. Marry the two together, and you get buns shaped like pigs. We quickly fell in love with the melon buns just to the left of the pigs, which featured a crisp and sugary exterior with a pillowy soft interior. In particular, I really liked the melon buns that were also filled with melon-flavored cream.

tokyo ginza pastries

And these cakes which appeared to be a bee flying around a honeycomb.

tokyo ginza pastries 2

On to the savory stuff – a delicious assortment of yakitori.

tokyo ginza yakitori

And on to the fish section.

tokyo ginza fish

We grabbed a couple things here and there, but in general it’s actually really hard to find a place to sit down to eat at the department stores. And we had been told by people that eating on the street in Japan is considered to be rude. So we just had a few quick bites before heading back to street-level to find a proper meal.

We stumbled upon a huge line that spanned an entire block leading up to a “Soba” sign. We surveyed the people in the line and they appeared to mostly be locals. Long line + locals = DELICIOUS FOOD, which is not to be confused with long line + tourists = RUN AWAY.

With nothing but time on our hands we decided to line up, and eventually one of the workers came out to distribute menus.

ginza kagari ramen line

I got distracted by this guy and followed him around the corner to take a closer look. He had a matching yellow ensemble on (both pants and jacket) and would have been completely camouflaged against his yellow Lamborghini if it weren’t for his glasses.

IMG_0922

The vending machines in Japan are no joke, and I quenched my thirst with a Pocari Sweat.

ginza kagari ramen vending machines

The entire menu was in Japanese, but lucky for us I had taken 4 years of Japanese language in high school. And I remembered that #1 stands for the first thing in a list, and in the context of a menu, in Japanese culture it usually represents the restaurant’s most popular dish (OK I made that up, but 95% of the time it’s true, right?).

My wife took this opportunity to chastise me for being useless at Japanese, at which point I reminded her how “useful” her French was last time we were in Paris.

About an hour later we were next in line, and I was excited for my bowl of Soba. Or so I thought…

ginza kagari ramen entrance

The restaurant only had 8 seats, but since our order was taken in line, as soon as we sat down our food was placed in front of us. Gotta love Japanese efficiency.

Hmm, I thought soba was dark in color? Must be some special type of light-colored Soba, I thought to myself. I didn’t care since whatever I was eating was off-the-charts delicious. It’s considered a compliment to the chef to slurp your noodles, and my slurps could have drown out the sound of a crying baby.

We walked away fat and happy but after some investigating it turned out that our meal was actually Tsukemen, or Japanese dipping noodles, and the restaurant was a ramen shop called Ginza Kagari. I considered reporting them to the Japanese noodle authorities for false advertising, but because their food was so amazingly good, I decided to let it slide.

ginza kagari ramen

After lunch we were on the hunt for sweets, and once again I can’t overemphasize how awesome it was to have the pocket wifi device. My wife was on a mission to eat a lifetime’s worth of green tea- flavored desserts on this trip, and her matcha radar (aka Yelp) brought us to Patisserie Sadaharu Aoki where we ordered a green tea croissant along with the Valencia cake.

patisserie sadaharu aoki cakes

patisserie sadaharu aoki

Not sure if it was food coma or jet leg, but by early afternoon we were absolutely shattered. We went back to the hotel for a quick nap before heading over to Ebisu to meet up with some friends for dinner where we had a great time at a Izakaya restaurant. In my jet-lagged daze, which wasn’t helped by all the beer, I forgot to take pictures of the meal other than this shot of some sashimi and the tastiest draught Sapporo I’ve ever had.

sashimi and sapporo beer

Not a bad first day in Japan, but overall I’d grade my day 1 eating performance as a solid “C”. I needed to step up my game, and what better place to do that than in the udon noodle capital of the world, Shikoku.

12 Comments

  1. Spent 8 nights in Tokyo last December. Also visited the amazing Department store food courts. They are absolutely the best in the world. Between those and the giant underground food courts, how can anyone stay slim? Go there is always a highlight for me when I visit Tokyo.

      1. Good idea about the wifi device rental. Thanks for the quick response! We’ll be spending a ‘fat & furious’ day in Tokyo later this year. I baked in a 12-hour layover on my way back from HKG on ANA. We arrive in HND at 6am and leave NRT at 6pm. Any recommendations for such a fast adventure?

        1. You will have a blast eating your way around Tokyo. I think it would make sense to go to the fish market in the morning for some fresh sushi, then you could really just walk around an area like Ginza and eat at bakeries, noodle shops, and department stores. The 12 hours will pass quickly!

  2. I tried Ginza Kagari yesterday after finding out about it on your blog. Youre right – off the charts delicious!!! I also signed up for the Mario karts after seeing them on your trip report!

    1. Hi Ernesto – glad to hear that you enjoyed those recommendations! I’m headed back to Tokyo next year, so let me know if you come across anything else that I should try!

  3. Hi Terence.

    I just got back last week and these were some of the highlights for me. This was my second time visiting Japan.

    1. Suntory Whiskey Tour in Yamakazi – about 10-15 minutes from Kyoto Station. You can take a tour (that has to be reserved in advance) and sample expensive whiskey (i.e. Macallan 25, Hibiki 30) for cheap in their tasting room.

    2. In Sugamo (take the Mita subway line)- there’s a ramen shop that has 1 star michelin – Tsuta. You have to go in the morning and get a ticket to come back after giving them 1000 yen deposit. Shoyu ramen with black truffle. Delicious!!!

    3. Hokkaido Dosanko Plaza in Ginza for Hokkaido milk and melon ice cream.

    4. Don Quijote for cheaper priced kit kats.

    5. Original Yoshinoya in Tsujiki Fish Market. (on the other side of where everyone is lining up for the sushi breakfast).

    6. In Kyoto, 9 Hours capsule hotel.

    7. Omakase at Sushi Ya(rated well on Andy Hayler’s blog and the chef speaks English) or Sushi Tokami

    8. Tokyo food blog – foodsaketokyo.com

    9. Mario karts in Akihabara – govoyagin.com You need to get an international drivers permit, which I got at AAA. We chose the option to have a guide with us and he was able to take our photos.

    10. Last but most important is wi fi rental. Ive been to Japan twice now and always rent from en.wifi-rental-store.jp I was able to pickup at Narita airport and they give you a prepaid envelope to mail it back.

  4. Would love to try out Ginza Kagari when I’m there! Fun fact: the Japanese sometimes use soba to describe noodles in general, so it’s not really false advertising 😉

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *