A Day in the Life of a
Foodie's Heaven...
January 29, 2006
And so the time has come to do a journal for my last day in Japan. I’m not currently liking those words.
Since we had decided that we would do lunch around noon, that gave me some time to nurse a bit of a hangover and find
something to do. I had a few requirements. It couldn’t be a park. It couldn’t be a temple. It had to be something I hadn’t seen
yet.
Upon reading the Tokyo guidebook we have, I read about an area called Ikebekuro. I figured this would be my stop today.
While I could have opted for an area in this part of town called Sunshine City—which they hail as a city within a city—I opted for
something else. In a word…Tobu. I now believe in love at first sight. I really do. I got to know Tobu for about 2 hours and I
have to say, that if it’s possible, I’m in love. I would consider moving to Tokyo for Tobu. I would visit Tobu everyday.
Now let me explain a bit about Tobu. Tobu has so many great qualities, is multi-faceted and can find ways to please everybody.
Now Tobu isn’t a ‘who’…Tobu is a ‘what’. It happens to be one of the largest department stores which also happens to house
one of the largest food departments…anywhere. Three floors of the most beautiful, most delicious food. I would know about
the taste because almost every other department offers samples. And it appears that I’ve adopted some of the Japanese
culture while I was over here because it was next to impossible for me to say ‘no’ when it came time to buying the products I
was sampling. The other thing is that I really have no idea what I was eating and buying. All I knew was that it was some of the
freshest, best-tasting stuff I’ve had in a long time. I even picked stuff up for my plane ride home.
And because I lingered around there for almost two hours just admiring all of the cases, I decided that this day was going to be
solely dedicated to Japanese foods. No sightseeing. No shopping (unless it’s for food).
In sticking with this plan, it was time to meet up with Dave and Masayo for lunch. Masayo had planned for us to go to an area
called Tsukishima where she had been recommended a place by a friend. Soo…this area was so different from any of the others
I had seen at this point. It almost had a smaller town feel to it with cute little alleys all over the place. I have absolutely no idea
how Masayo was able to fid this restaurant. We turned from one small alley to another and then to another. This entire area is
known for ‘yaki’ restaurants. Before coming here, I knew about teriyaki and teppanyaki. Unbeknownst to me, there is a whole
world of ‘yakis’ out there! I forget the names of the two different ones that we got but they were both absolutely delicious! We
also had sodas where you open them by pushing something into it to release a marble (that remains in the soda bottle the whole
time). For dessert, we also got frozen strawberries filled with vanilla ice cream. And then it was time for a bit of street food—
the winner was basically vanilla custard sandwiched by two small pancakes. Almost like a custard-filled donut…but it wasn’t
fried and it wasn’t as sweet.
I was now down to an hour left in Tokyo. I went back to the food garden in Mitsukoshi so that I could spend a few yen. I headed
straight towards the fruit candies which were so good. It was seriously love at first sample when I first tried them the other
day. So now it was time to buy them. In addition to tasting great, they were just so adorable. And this would have to wrap it up.
I still had to figure out how to consolidate everything so that I could realistically carry everything by myself. I’m leaving with
about twice as much as I came with. And if I didn’t already stock up on enough food while I’ve been out here, Masayo was so
sweet and kind and gave me a gift of a box of nice rice crackers. Too sweet…especially for all she had already done while I was
out here. After a round of hugs, it was…
Sayonara Dave. Sayonara Masayo. Sayonara Tokyo. Sayonara Japan.
| An example of one of the many food counters at Tobu. |
| Eating some type of 'yaki'. |
