Kappabashi Dori

While Akihabara is widely known as Tokyo’s Electric Town, the lesser-known but equally fascinating Kappabashi Dori (“dori” means street) is the city’s Kitchen Street. This is the place that chefs and restauranteurs visit for their supplies. The entrance to the main shopping street is marked by a giant chef wearing a toque (see photo above).

I went wandering there a couple of days ago, right before the weather shifted from pleasant and relatively cool (in the 70s), to high 80s and stultifyingly humid. It’s so hot right now that in addition to the people who hand out advertising tissue packets on the street (convenient for mopping up sweat), lots of stores are giving out promotional fans, and people are fanning themselves furiously all over the city. The chic people opt for the beautiful (and expensive) folding fans with painted designs. The rest of us take what we can get on the street.

Anyway, back to Kappabashi. If you’re a sushi lover and have ever eaten kappamaki, you probably assumed (as I did) that the “kappa” meant cucumber (the “maki” means roll). Wrong. A kappa is a creature from Japanese folklore, and its favorite food is cucumbers: the reason for the sushi’s whimsical name. Kappabashi (“bashi” means bridge) may or may not have been named after this creature, but the people who work there have made the kappa a sort of mascot.

I haven’t really gotten a handle on kappas. They’re alternately described as lovable but mischievous water sprites, or cruel and evil monsters who inhabit ponds and rivers in Japan. They are considered Shinto water gods who are exceedingly polite and help farmers irrigate fields. But they’re also frightening beings whose favorite food, after cucumbers, are children, who they capture and eat in a rather disgusting way (by sucking the insides out through the rectum). The various depictions of the kappa all over Kappabashi reflect this schizophrenic nature.

The kappas:

Kappas have a bowl-shaped depression on the top of their head containing the water that’s the source of their strength (and even their life). It’s also the source of their weakness. If you’re ever confronted by a carnivorous kappa, here’s how to defend yourself: Bow deeply toward the monster. Kappas are so very polite that they have no choice but to bow back, and when they do the water spills out of their head, leaving them weakened or dead.

I didn’t see any living kappas on Kappabashi, but I saw an incredible number of kitchen supply stores (actually, more than 160). There were establishments specializing in chopsticks, laquerware, china, cooking equipment, teapots, bamboo steamers, knives, bentos, paper lanterns, “noren” (those sectioned cloth banners that hang outside shops and restaurants in Japan), aprons, signs, display cases.

A store specializing in dishes:

And one with rice cookers big enough to feed hundreds of people:

But the real reason many “gaijin” (foreigners) come to Kappabashi is to ogle the fake food. This often incredibly realistic plastic food graces display cases outside restaurants all over the country.

The practice in Japan of displaying the ersatz edibles dates from the 1920s, when a Tokyo department store first put (real) items from their menu in a display case, and saw their business boom. The idea quickly caught on with other restaurants. The 3-D menu illustrations certainly make ordering easier for non-Japanese speakers (although photos on the menu would work just about as well). But real food had to be replaced several times a day so it didn’t look wilted or smell bad. So an industry was born to make replica food as real as possible. Now most of the models are made of meticulously molded and painted PVC. And many of the artists and factories are centered in or represented in Kappabashi. Chefs work with the fake food manufacturers to come up with models that look exactly like their own cooking. But samples and more generic ready-made dishes are for sale in several Kappabashi stores.

Most of the stores also offer smaller versions (such as keychains) for gaijin enamored of the realistic fare. Full-size cakes and main dishes can cost hundreds of dollars, but a small refrigerator magnet or keychain can be had for as little as $4. Daniel bought a tiny hamburger and I bought a piece of tekkamaki (a sushi tuna roll). And then we got hungry and left in search of some real food.