Tsukiji Market is the world’s largest seafood market. This tour explores the outer market and the many different food, knives, kitchenware, tableware, and more at the market. Above is my favorite tamagoyaki shop, Shouro.

While Tsukiji is famous for its seafood, the outer market has many stalls with produce, pickles, kombu, katsuobushi, nori, and much more. This is fresh wasabi.

In autumn, aromatic matsutake, the king of mushrooms in Japan, are for sale.

Fall is also the time of year when ginkgo trees drop their nuts. We love these ginnan simply grilled as a small bite with sake or shochu. It’s also lovely in a savory, hot egg custard, chawanmushi.

Kibun’s stall has a wide variety of deep-fried fish cakes, perfect for oden, or for grilling in the toaster oven and having as a snack.

Here are some of the Satsuma-age deep-fried fish cakes from Kibun. The long ones on the right are gobo (burdock). Other flavors include onion, octopus, squid, shirasu, and more.

This Food Sake Tokyo tour is being offered through Elizabeth Andoh’s Taste of Culture on Tuesday, November 13th.

Ningyocho Tour

Kappabashi Tour

Depachika Tour – There will also be a tour of a depachika, the epicurean gourmet food halls in the department stores. I worked at Nihonbashi Takashimaya for two years and will share many things that you may miss while visiting on your own. The depachika tour will look at all of the areas including sake, confectionaries (both Western and Japanese), osouzai (prepared foods including bento), meat, seafood, bakeries, and the supermarket area.