Food and Drink

When looking for some photos the other day, I found this old shot of a distinctly grungy looking Tokyo fruit and vegetable shop. It’s a business that always fascinated me. Partly because of how it looked, and partly due to its location in a dark and dingy Shibuya alleyway.

But that was then and this is now and sadly it doesn’t exist anymore, so seeing the photo again brought back how truly out of place it always seemed. Almost everything was wrapped in plastic too, which is unusual for such a small shop. However, when passing by one evening, that aspect at least suddenly made sense, as I saw the owner frantically trying to shoo away a couple of rats that were clearly not going to give up on a fresh fruit buffet without a fight.

Last year I posted a set of old and no longer functioning Japanese vending machines. From booze, cigarettes and even batteries, those one time dispensers now stand empty and unused — their former necessity usurped by convenience stores and a rapidly changing culture.

Some of those machines I still have a real soft spot for. They look incredible, plus they also have an impossible to describe character. I even went as far as saying they possess a quiet dignity of sorts, which despite sounding a bit far-fetched isn’t all that difficult to imagine.

Since then I’ve been lucky enough to find several more, but the one below deserves a post all of its own. Design-wise it’s not all that different to its more modern cousins, but the decay and rust stains really set it apart. Now whether any of that means it has dignity or not I don’t know, but what isn’t up for debate is how truly unique it looks.

When entering an old Tokyo bar or restaurant, there’s often no way of knowing what it’ll be like on the inside. With experience I can now make a fairly educated guess, but there are still lots of surprises to be had — both good and bad.

The little Chinese place below was much darker than many, but most of the standards were reassuringly all present and correct. Best of all though was the wholly unexpected multimedia phone call from a different time and place altogether.

Some old restaurants are spotless despite the countless meals that have been made in them, whereas others are more than happy to display all the stains and grime produced by decades of almost daily cooking.

Vending machines are genuinely ubiquitous in Japan, so it’s very rare for me to make one of them the main focus of a photograph. That said, there are exceptions, and this previously posted set of old and defunct drink and tobacco dispensers was something I thoroughly enjoyed putting together.

Similarly enjoyable was both finding and getting some food from the decidedly old school toast vending machine below. One of only a few still in use, there was a choice of either a pizza or ham toasted sandwich.

When it popped out of the contraption, the pizza option I went for was plenty warm enough and tasted surprisingly good. Admittedly it was somewhat on the soggy side, but it was toast, from a vending machine, so that didn’t matter one little bit.

And if a toast vending machine wasn’t enough, there was a similarly retro feel to the pitstop’s car park, as it had an area set aside for youngsters to play and enjoy cigarette breaks between rides.

Old and faded shop fronts are almost always interesting, with the colours, signs and slow decay suggestive of the years that have passed and the stories held within. Usually a simple straight on shot — just like this other retro booze shop — is enough for me to document it and have a keepsake before its likely demolition, but something about this one demanded more. It’s not that special really, and yet the shutters, along with the broken vending machine did seem to require several extra photos. A decision that also provided the perfect opportunity to get a person in the frame which is always worth the effort.