Street Food in Tokyo

So, a friend and I decided today would be a good day to go explore Asakusa. What we didn't take into account was the fact that everyone else in Tokyo had the same idea. See, every New Year here in Japan is celebrated by a First Visit to a temple. And Asakusa happens to have a very large temple. It became apparent while we were still on the train that there was going to be a bit of a bottle neck effect around the temple area. I had never seen a station so crowded!!

Once we got to the Asakusa temple, we realized actually going up to see the temple was going to be a problem. The walk way up to the temple was barricaded off by police, and everyone had to get in line and wait their turn to begin the trek up to to the temple. My friend and I decided that going down the alleys on either side of the temple was a better bet. After all, we weren't looking to go in to the temple so much as to take pictures of it.

It was as we were making our way down one of these sides streets that we stumbled into a street vendor masturi. Sorry, this doesn't translate very well into English. If you've ever been to Hawaii, it's a bit like a 'swap meet'. Or maybe it can be compared to a flea market? Except this one was made up of mostly food vendors. With only the occasional New Years souvenir booth thrown in to add variety. Guess where I had lunch today?

じゃがいバタ

おこのみやき

grilled chicken

roasted corn on the cob

teriyaki skewers

salted fish skewers

チョコバナナ

たこやき

じゃがいバター

たいやき

Street food in Japan appears to be much like street food anywhere else- it's mostly served on sticks. The only difference is that many of the street foods here are sea food related. Except I mostly got stuff that... wasn't sea food. Though I did eat a bite of my friend's takoyaki; which is deep fried octopus. I also got a chocobanana which is exactly what it sounds like, and it was delicious. I also got a jyagai-bata which literally means potato-butter. But it also had mayonnaise on it! I could have had kimchi on it too, but I decided against it. Then I rounded out my meal with a taiyaki which is a fished shaped pasty with filling- mine had cream in it, and my friend's had sweet red bean paste.

And in between all the eating, we ended up getting a few pictures of the temple!