I’ve spent nearly a week exploring this sprawling, crowded, orderly, clean and eminently civilized city, and I feel like I’ve barely begun to find what Tokyo has to offer. Every time I emerge from the city’s extensive (and amazingly clean and efficient) subway system it seems like there’s another delightful cultural, commercial or culinary surprise waiting for me.
A favorite find was Kappabashi-dori or “Kitchen Town” in North Tokyo, about a two-mile long street containing literally hundreds of shops selling every conceivable type of cooking and serving ware. The variety, specialization and sheer quantity of equipment are awe-inspiring. For a kitchen gear junkie like me, there’s a real risk of overdose.
This kitchen wonderland defies any comprehensive description, but here are some highlights:
Plastic display food. (I was tempted by the sushi clocks, but resisted.)
Rice and soup bowls.
Baskets.
Coffee brewing gear (including the elaborate Japanese siphon systems now appearing at serious coffee fetishist hangouts in the US, like Blue Bottle coffee shops in San Franicisco and Brooklyn).
Clay pots.
Traditional iron kettles.
And, of course, beautiful Japanese knives. (I stopped counting at around the 30th knife shop.)
Mindful of our luggage weight limit (and our three already well-stocked kitchens), we talked ourselves down to purchasing only a few special items, but I’m sure Kappabashi will be among my first stops the next time we return to Tokyo.
