Tokyo may well be blessed with an incredible train network that crisscrosses the metropolis, but the city is also surprisingly walkable, so on good days, meanders between specific locales have a lovely habit of conjuring up more surprises than the main destination. Such walks also provide the option of popping into a local neighbourhood eatery, and for the time being at least, that can very often mean an old school machi chuka. A type of Japanese-style Chinese restaurant that was ubiquitous in the post-war period, but the with the owners of such places invariably getting on in years to say the least, they are slowly disappearing.
While they last, however, they are places frequented by all kinds of people. Somewhere anyone can feel comfortable due to their relaxed, down to earth ambience. A sort of home from home feeling that is further added to by the fact that looks-wise, and despite many decades in business, many of them haven’t changed much at all. And with those elements in mind, this little glimpse of one such place ticks all the requisite boxes. For starters there’s the older couple with the man doing almost all the cooking. Then it’s also patched up with tape, the decor and menu haven’t been altered since inception, and perhaps most of all, there’s the pretty much standard, and now beautifully faded, red counter. A little sanctuary that, like the vast majority of such restaurants, is as full of soul as the food that’s served.
