Grandma’s Harajuku?! Best JAPANESE STREET FOOD in Sugamo, Tokyo

[Applause] hi welcome to japan by food i'm your host shizuka anderson today i am in sugamo in front of jizodori shopping street sugamo has been around for ages it was actually established in 1903 since the edo era so there's a lot of history a lot of nostalgia here so i'm very excited to explore and this area is actually known as grandma's harajuku because we all know harajuku is the favorite shopping area for young people but this is basically where all of the older people come to shop so i think this will be a very fun place to explore there's a lot of old style shops and restaurants a lot of street food with like traditional foods wagashi and there's also one very interesting thing that sugamo is known for and that is red panties which is a direct translation and it's said to stimulate chi and life energy which i think is very interesting but also i don't know what they're gonna look like like are they gonna be granny pennies i don't know i think we're gonna have to go find a shop that sells them and see what it's all about so anyway let's go explore and eat some delicious street food let's go [Music] oh it's an osembre shop rice crackers and it looks very traditional i love it and it seems like they have handmade fresh hose and they have them all here these look really good they look so crispy they're soy they're like painted with soy sauce this is a very traditional style of rice crackers what else have they got in here let's take a little look oh they have something called nude what so as you may know rice crackers are usually crispy very crunchy but these are called nure sembe and they are not crunchy at all they are actually soft because nurem means literally moist this one is in the shape of a buddha because this area is famous for their temple and it has a very long buddhist history he's the ogisel person on earth who has reached enlightenment and they remain on earth to guide other people that's an ogiso sound very cool this is so cute so i think i'm going to try one of these anuresembe but also this is another thing i've never seen before there's something called nurekari which means moist crispy rice crackers which again i don't know what that means how do you make it moist and crispy i'm gonna give this a try let's try both the moist and the moist crispy okay so i've just got my goodies this is the nude sembe and the nude karisembe and i asked them to tell me a little bit about this and apparently the nuressen bay is basically it hasn't been dried and it hasn't been grilled so essentially it is kind of just mochi is what i'm expecting it to be i asked them it's basically mochi and she's like yes so i was like okay so they have a sweet sauce that they put on it which will give it a senbae-like flavor but basically it's gonna be chewy and soft here we go let's give it a try the noode senbei the moist rice cracker interesting it is chewy like mochi a little bit more pancakey in texture and the taste is a very sweet soy sauce taste so it's not overly salty there's a lot of umami a little bit sweet it's really delicious okay so next up i'm gonna try the nurekari senbei the reason why it's slightly different from a regular rice cracker is that they use the wet senbei the moisenbe first and then they grill it so basically they take the flavoring and the texture of the original one and then they grill it so it becomes a real senbei but i think the flavor is a little bit different from your traditional senbei and it seems there's different types this one has sesame seeds inside it black sesame and probably slightly different sauces does taste in flavor a little bit similar to the nuremochi that we just tried it's very good but otherwise it's kind of a more or less classic style rice cracker not bad extra crispy oh look at this it's a gacha gacha gacha gacha is a basically a toy machine where you get little capsules of different adorable toys or collectible items and this one is sudamon which is the mascot of tsukamo and actually sugamon is a duck because kamal means duck in japanese so this place is called literally duck nest this is super cute i don't know if we're going to get anything today but let's see if we can find sugamon somewhere else in this area i feel like this is it you guys oh my gosh it's the red panties but they are totally granny panties i love it i mean i don't want to be mean or anything but like they are very big i think these are actually a souvenir item that's why it says interior red nice stretch band very important oh they're like all kinds i mean i could see myself wearing these at home it's like shorts i think these are ninja shiba'inu socks and i would legitimately buy these for myself that is so cute okay i think we've already uncovered the mystery of the red panties they are 100 granny panties but we all need some cheese so i think these are great let's keep exploring [Music] this is really cute and i think it says shio daifuku which means salt daifuku daifuku being delicious chewy mochi with red bean paste inside but this one is salt flavored let's take a look okay you guys so this shop is really famous for their shio daifuku which is their salt daifuku i think the outside as well as the red bean paste on the inside is salted so that's something that tsugamo is actually really famous for but i've never tried before so i'm gonna get that one that looks really really good you guys it is fluffy as a cloud i don't i never realized that mochi could be this this fluffy it's so so light well let's give it a try here we go itadakimasu oh it's really good that is so good what is amazing about the flavor of this daifuku is definitely the red bean paste on the inside that's what stands out to me the most right now normally red bean paste is super super sweet um it's just it's very very almost overpoweringly sweet but this one is mixed in with a little bit of salt so it really balances and just holds back the sweetness a little bit the exterior doesn't scream of flavor as much it's very very powdery you can get a little bit of a salty vibe but not too much most of the salt and sweetness is all packed inside i think it's the perfect choice for people who don't like too much sweet this is a really good one this is excellent and what's really interesting about this shop is it has a very very long history the original shop opened in 1937 and the shio daifuku was born in probably around 1963. but what's interesting is the original mochi that they made in 1937 was salt free and it was marketed toward people who had um like diabetes and stuff to make it a little bit more help friendly this is kind of the opposite but it's very delicious definitely recommend anyway i'm going to finish this and keep exploring [Music] wow this shop has been around for about 70 years same as the shio daifuku chop around he was kind enough to give me a little sample of tea so let's give it a try um that's so refreshing after eating some japanese sweets this is the perfect combination you eat japanese foods and then drink japanese green teas [Music] oh i think this is a honey shop you guys it's a premium soft serve ice cream with honeycomb inside oh my goodness i think i'm gonna have to try this i've got my ice cream oh it looks so good oh my gosh look at it here we go oh really milky and creamy and delicious it's kind of like a nice rich hokkaido milk ice cream and there's actually the whole cup i just realized is coated with honey yes i get why bears dig this this is fantastic okay i'm gonna finish this quickly before it melts let's hit a couple other spots along the street and here we are at koganji temple wow it's very peaceful in here and you can smell the incense it smells so nice so usually you can put the smoke on your body and any part that you put the smoke on is said to be healed and this particular temple is home to togenuki jizo which is the splinter removing buddha i don't have any particular ailments at the moment but my feet are a little sore so i'm going to try and get some some smoke over here i love how they have little fake flowers up as decoration it's a really cute touch i think this is our next stop of the day this is an oi moyasang so it's a sweet potato shop that's what i want to eat daigaku imo but backwards because the sign is backwards is a type of sweet potato dish let's see if we can get some ooh okay i've got my daikaku emo it's very cute so basically daigakuimo is a fried sweet potato it's been rolled in um in basically flour and stuff and fried and then it's covered in a delicious sweet sauce itadakimasu that's a really good it's really starchy the outside of it i thought it was going to be a little bit crunchier it's a little bit of like a sticky but firm bite to the outside which tastes like a candied something the sauce is delicious very sweet but not overpowering and what's really nice is the black sesame seeds it completely offsets the sweetness and gives it like this balance of savory and sweet which i love that is so good we still have more to explore so let's keep going so i think i found my last stop for the day this shop sells iso age which is basically a fried seafood cake topped with noti seaweed and i have never had it before so this is their number one most popular one which is called the taco bowl or octopus stick and this is the um ebi mayo bowl so it's the shrimp mayonnaise stick personally i'm really leaning toward this ebi mayo bowl because shrimp and mayo are always an amazing combination in japan so i might go for that but i'm gonna go take a look inside [Music] i've got the goods so i've got the two popular isowages the first one is the most popular flavor which is the octopus stick let's take a bite here we go there's little surprisingly pink bits in there it's benishoga okay so benishoga is the the pink pickled ginger that you find in um a lot of japanese restaurants so the flavor the pickled flavor kind of complements the savoriness and the fish cake is um it's a chewy fish cake kind of like chikuwa if you've ever had a chikuwa it's a very chewy bouncy fish cake oh and big chunks of octopus the octopus is really chewy really meaty the whole thing is really bouncy really savory really flavorful and easy to eat because on a stick nice and hot too which is a plus let's try the next one so this is basically a popular dish for me prefecture but it's actually very similar to satsuma age which is kind of the tokyo equivalent and this particular one is the ebi mayo bowl so as you can see it's actually there's some mayonnaise kind of seeping out of the sides okay let's take a bite here we go my gosh that is really good take a look at that it is filled with really plump really juicy shrimp and of course the mayo adds a creaminess to it shrimp and mayonnaise always a really good combination oh whoa i took another bite and a whole bunch of mayonnaise just came out mmm yes yes i think this is definitely my favorite stop of the day this is fantastic clearly there is a lot to offer here in sigurmo lots of amazing street foods to enjoy and also lots of um wonderful atmosphere it's obviously the grannies harajuku but i think that's what makes it kind of different and special it's very warm welcoming and all of the shopkeepers are really really kind and very friendly and on top of that it's a historical location because this street jizodori was actually one of the first stops on a common pilgrimage in the edo era that connected edo to kyoto and this was their first stop so that was kind of the start of how this area became a bustling little economic shopping center if you will and definitely worth a try to visit if you ever come to tokyo and if you guys are interested we also have tours on japan by food so a tour guide can show you around here and if you're interested the links are down below and of course make sure to like comment share and subscribe if you like the video i'll see you guys in another episode of japan by food bye

Channel: Japan by Food

Views: 63,799

Rating: 4.9654179 out of 5

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Id: ALPxwsUC1fo

Length: 16min 5sec (965 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 22 2021