Japanese Food

Ekiben at Tokyo Station

Juan is beginning to get excited about Japan and has been emailing me links to his favorite Ramen shop in Kyoto, to ekiben (railway bento boxes) at Tokyo Station, and to Furusato Matsuri (regional festivals) exhibition they are having in the Tokyo Dome while we are there.  Yes.  They are all related to food.  That's how the Japanese celebrate.

Japan Talk has lots of articles explaining their food and lists of what to eat:  105 Kinds of Japanese Food, 96 Vegetarian Japanese Foods (in case you can't eat fish), 12 Things to Put in Your Miso Soup, 34 Ingredients for Japanese Food and 29 Japanese Street Foods.  They tell you important things about Miso Soup: "Any good miso soup balances ingredients that float and ingredients that sink" and "miso soup is as important to breakfast as coffee".  And you learn weird things like Panko, the Japanese bread crumbs, "are made by passing an electric current through dough as it bakes."  Also aburaage (deep fried tofu) is difficult to make at home and generally factory produced -- which is good to know and I won't try to deep fry it anymore.

Supposedly Fernando has a whole bunch of stuff on food, beginning with natto...

I was looking for a list of supermarkets but Food Sake Tokyo said to go to the Shotengai (traditional shopping arcades) instead and gave a list of his favorites.  Unfortunately the list is from 2010 but hopefully the streets are still there.
Kagurazaka is east of Shinjuku and I'm assuming the street is Waseda Dori.
Yanaka is the oldest area in Tokyo and I've come across other suggestions for visiting it.   It's only about a half hour walk from Minowa station so maybe we could do it on Sunday before Juan and Mandy arrive.  The route goes along the Nippori fabric street as well.

Walking Route from Minowa Station to Yanaka Ginza