Food and Drink

The tofu shop below always fascinated me. It was so old and ramshackle that each crack and layer of grime seemed to conjure up some sort of story. Photographing it, on the other hand, was easier said than done, as the little alleyway it was located in is way too narrow, so I just enjoyed stopping by and looking at it every time I was in the area.

In the summer of 2014, however, the owner unexpectedly appeared, allowing me to get a shot of him, and a bit of the building.

Then, just shy of 3 years later, I had the good fortune of seeing him again. It was a surprise to get another opportunity, and similarly surprising to see how much he had aged.

But sadly there won’t be any more such sightings, or indeed photos, as I dropped by at the weekend — my first walk in that area for several months — and not only was the owner absent, but so was the shop. The plot of land it once covered is now a car park. A nondescript, freshly tarmacked rectangle that strangely, but understandably, offers no hints at all about what stood there before.

Grubby little bars are without a doubt the best places to enjoy yakitori, but similarly grubby little take out shops are definitely the best alternative.

The old tofu shop below has appeared on Tokyo Times before, but back then its incredibly large signboard was still proudly intact.

Now why something so impressive is no longer in situ is a mystery. A typhoon did strike the capital around the same time period, so that could have damaged it, or maybe even ripped it off the roof. Who knows? Yet whatever did happen, it has never been put back or restored, and instead, a spot of renovation has taken place. Work that, without the sign as a visual decoy, emphasises just how fantastically skew-whiff everything really is.

There are numerous reasons to seek out old Tokyo bars run by equally old people. The often similarly ageing decor is one thing, as is the invariably relaxed and carefree vibe, but perhaps most of all it’s the wealth of stories one hears that makes them truly memorable. Tales from an incredibly long life lived on the city’s far western reaches for example, or the culinary adventures of a lovely fella who left home at 14 so he could train to be a French chef. All unique and genuinely enriching elements of such evenings, and the hours spent in the little bar below were no different.

The clutter on display suggested it had been there for decades, but the mama-san only opened for business 10 years ago. Deciding, at the then sprightly young age of 73, that she needed somewhere small. And small it is, with space for 6 people at the most — allowing her to comfortably cook, serve drinks and still have time for a well earned sit down and cigarette.

All of which is rather different from her younger days. Starting out as a company salesperson of sorts, she enjoyed several business trips to Asia and beyond, but ultimately it wasn’t really her thing, so she made a switch to the entertainment industry. A move that culminated in her running a club in Shibuya, where the clientele, and the many women who looked after them, had to to be managed. This turned out to be something of a high point of sorts, as after that she moved to progressively smaller establishments, in progressively more suburban locations, resulting, many decades later, in where she is now. A place where she’s still happy, still running a tight ship, and despite disagreements with her truly enormous cat, still very much her own boss.

When in a new area and it’s fast approaching lunch time, there’s always the hope that an interesting little place will present itself. And for me at least the Chinese restaurant below was pretty much perfect, as it’s old, cosy and happily displays all the dilapidation of its five-plus decades in operation.

Several weeks ago I documented the death of a traditional Tokyo bar. The terribly sad sight of a once lively little place that now lies empty and quiet. Why it shut, however, remains a mystery. Its former owner’s relatively advanced age is the obvious answer, but then again, the planned demolition of the building could easily be another.

The closure of the bar below, on the other hand, is unfortunately not lacking in facts. A friend and I drank there back in March 2016. It was one of those lovely chance finds, and one that was clearly very special from the moment we walked in. The interior, the sumo on the radio, and of course the smiling mama-san. A feeling of good fortune that only grew stronger as we relaxed, enjoyed our beers and heard a little bit about our host’s life. And it genuinely was only a bit, as by then she was 93 years old. The details of that night can be read about in the original post here.

After that visit we went back a few times, but always without success. They could easily have been days off. Maybe days she just didn’t feel like opening. Plus once it might have been because we were simply too early. Deep down though there was always the nagging worry that we were in fact too late, and in the end that inevitably was the case. She died at the grand old age of 96, and the bar has understandably died with her. It still looks the same (at least from the outside anyway), but it’s now merely a locked up building rather than a bar, a home and a simply wonderful place to sit down and while away the hours — or indeed the decades.