“Keep conversations to a minimum and focus on your meal,” says a typed folded A4 paper sign taped onto the back of a cupboard in front of me. Perched at a low counter on a padded diner stool, I do as I’m told, and pick up my bowl, slurping soup with a little porcelain spoon, and eating mouthfuls of noodles with chopsticks.
Rich warm broth drips down my chin, while the smell of frying tempura wafts from the tiny strip-lit kitchen in front of me, where street food stands. The alley is officially known as Memory Lane, but locals call it “Piss Alley” – a reminder of when it opened in the 1940s without a public toilet.
My 400 yen (approximately £2) bowl of ramen, topped with green vegetables and a halved hard-boiled egg is tasty and great value. As I continue slurping, I watch the two chefs in action; a middle-aged man wearing whites and a grease-stained apron, tosses handfuls of cooked noodles from a big basin into small bowls, ladles over some broth, and passes the bowl to his colleague in a blue shirt who piles on the various toppings.
Tokyo has the most Michelin-starred restaurants of any city in the world, totalling over 230, an accolade it’s retained for over 15 consecutive years. But the guide isn’t only reserved for palatial hotel dining rooms; plenty of its recommendations include unassuming counter spots and family-run kitchens – proof that in this city, exceptional cooking is just as often found atop a plastic table as at a five-star one.
There’s no doubt my first-night dinner at the one-Michelin-starred Yamazato sushi counter inside the five-star Okura, one of Tokyo’s best hotels, is a meal I’ll remember for years to come. But for most of my trip, I had planned to go beyond the gloss and discover as many alternative food experiences as I could cram into three days. I was hoping for a different perspective on the famously high-tech city, starting with street food in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant.
I finish my excellent bowl of ramen and go in search of yakitori– skewers of meat grilled over charcoal. Further along the alley, I squeeze into a tiny, smoke-filled restaurant packed with locals drinking iced whiskey highballs from plastic cups. I order a chilled sake and take a pot luck approach with the food, pointing to a picture resembling skewers of beef on a colourful laminated menu in Japanese.
Immersed in loud post-work chatter, I watch the grill chef in action. He’s wearing a black bandana and turning a row of tiny skewers on the grill over red-hot coals, which sends the odd flame shooting upwards. My plate of glossy skewers arrives and I sink my teeth into the buttery soft meat. It’s delicious and only 1000 yen (£5). I wonder how anyone can visit Tokyo without trying the street food.
The next morning, I enjoy a hot can of coffee from a vending machine near my hotel for 120 yen (50p), ubiquitous in the city and the whole of Japan. It sets me up for an excellent food tour with Sliding open the panelled wooden door to Chanko Kawasaki I’m greeted by two friendly bowing waitresses in white aprons who usher me to a counter seat in one of two nostalgic wood-panelled dining rooms. An old TV perched high in the corner of the tiny strip-lit kitchen opposite blasts out a wrestling match. In minutes, a chunky ceramic hot pot of broth is bubbling away over a gas burner in front of me, filled to the brim with chicken, tofu, strips of omelette and a rainbow of vegetables. At 5000 yen (£23), it’s my most expensive meal, but delicious and worth every penny. It doesn’t surprise me when I discover later that Chanko Kawasaki holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, the guide’s nod to exceptional food at modest prices. The Japanese are obsessed with aesthetically pleasing desserts so I wrap up my adventure with a fruit sandwich – furutsu sando. These colourful sweet creations consist of freshly sliced fruit layered with whipped cream between pillowy white bread. Most convenience shops sell them, but I treat myself at Takano Fruit Parlour, a luxurious cafe, which is five floors above Shinjuki, close to where my off-beat food journey began – and much in the same way: quiet contemplation. Ellie was a guest of Culinary BackstreetsHow to do it
