Even though I live in Tokyo, I don’t get to Ginza all that often. These days there are sub-centres like Roppongi Hills, Shiodome and the Marunouchi Building that easily rival the old downtown, so there’s no reason to travel far for shopping or good food anymore. Still, however many polished new places spring up, none of them quite match the unique atmosphere of Ginza’s streets, where tradition and the modern are so beautifully laid out side by side. So lately I’ve been making a point of finding reasons to visit Ginza regularly.
The entrance to Ginza at dusk
If you stroll slowly from the Marunouchi Building down the luxury-brand street, before you know it you’ve arrived at the edge of Ginza.
The Sony Building, a Ginza landmark
I used to go there a lot to look around, but these days the Apple Store in Ginza is more fun.
Taimeian, my favourite soba shop
It’s a soba shop tucked away in a corner of Ginza. It’s featured in guidebooks, and when you go it’s really packed. It’s fairly well known, but it doesn’t seem to be known much in Korea. True to being a Ginza restaurant, most people use it more like an izakaya than a place for a meal. Most of them order a few light dishes and a drink and sit there chatting. You also see plenty of people who look like they work Ginza’s night scene. The place is cramped and people keep pouring in, so if it comes to that you’ll end up sharing a table quite naturally, which is unusual for Japan. Even so, nobody gets rowdy; everyone just drinks quietly and leaves. You could simply write it off as inconvenient, messy and poorly served, but to me it felt like a grown-ups-only space that kids wouldn’t understand. Maybe this is what you’d call very Ginza..
Kakiage soba
Hot soba topped with kakiage tempura. Eating this shop’s hot soba changed the way I think about soba. Who knew soba this good existed.. I’ve been to top-end soba shops too, but soba is essentially a common people’s food, so paying several thousand yen for it never sits right with me. And since soba is basically meant to be dipped in tsuyu, the fancier the soba shop, the more often the noodles and the broth go their separate ways when you order it hot. Flavour the broth with eel or duck and it tastes better, sure, but the price goes up too, and the noodles and the broth each just insist on their own personality. You almost never find a place like this that makes noodles perfectly suited to hot soba and serves them simply. For someone like me who loves a hot broth, there can’t be a better soba shop than this one.
Ever since I started living abroad, every change of season makes me desperately miss things like sandfish, croaker, chogyetang (chilled chicken soup) and naengmyeon, and in the same way, whenever I leave Tokyo I always end up missing this shop’s soba. In Tokyo’s cold winters, when clear, dry days go on for days on end, the hot soba here is like an oasis that warms you right down to your heart.
That was delicious.
I’d like to come with a group rather than alone and work my way through this shop’s menu. It seems like the kind of place where anything you order would be good. But it doesn’t look like I’ll be coming out to Ginza to drink anytime soon ^_^ so I’ll just have to be happy with the soba..
Wandering around Ginza, I came across a long line of people outside a place called Sushi no Midori.
The line was far too long, so I just looked. They say it’s cheap, but it’s hard to call it a great place to eat, so I doubt I’ll ever regret skipping it..
After walking around Ginza with the group, late at night we headed to Ippudo, a Hakata tonkotsu ramen shop. It was past 11, and the line was still long. The shop isn’t small either, so it’s seriously popular.
Free side dishes
The free side dishes are one of the secrets of this shop’s popularity.
Shiromaru Motoaji, the most basic ramen
It’s the most basic item on the menu, but it’s plenty good on its own. Ippudo has so many branches, yet it always keeps up this level of quality, which is really impressive.
Ginza’s glittering night rolls on ^_^ but a small-time guy like me has to hurry home before the last train goes..