Kapabashi – Kitchen ware town

I jumped at the chance to take a trip into Tokyo’s Kapabashi district last week with a visitor.  Kapabashi is otherwise known as Kitchenware town.  It is made up of one main street between Asakusa and Ueno and is lined on either side with shops. 

These shops are all specialist retailers whose main market are the restaurants and hotels of Tokyo.  Of course they will sell to anyone including tourists and expats like me.

Unfortunately, we got there too late after spending all afternoon in Asakusa.  We arrived at closing time and I only had time to take one (very average) photo of one of the display model manufacturers.  This photo is taken through their front display window and doesn’t really show their best work but you can get the idea.  The shop is full of every kind of food that you can imagine, Japanese and not.  The bad news is that none of it is edible.  They make and sell models of ingredients and full dishes ranging from ramen to spaghetti and from steak tempura.  They even do very convincing parfaits and beer models that really do a good job of encouraging a healthy appetite.

I promise to go back to Kapabashi soon and write up a few shop reviews