Traditional Tokyo Food

Monjayaki

During our stay in Tokyo we went on a food tour, Tokyo by Night, offered through the tour company, Viator. We had 11 people in our group and had the opportunity to meet some very nice people from Australia, USA and Canada . We made 3 stops during the evening – first to eat skewers of barbeque meat, veggies and seafood and then a candy and cake shop.

Our final stop of the evening was to a teppan restaurant in a small corner of Tsukishima in Tokyo Bay. There we got to try a very traditional Tokyo food called Monjayaki, or simply, monja. This is a type of Japanese pan-fried batter, popular in the Kantō region, dating back to the early 19th century in Tokyo, when it was offered by restaurants to school children as an afternoon snack before they headed home. Traditionally, it was simply a soft batter of flour, cabbage and egg – but over time other ingredients were added such as seafood, pork, spicy code roe, noodles and cheese. Part of the monja experience is doing your own cooking on an iron griddle table called a teppan. Its made by cooking the main ingredients first, spreading them in a circle on the grill, and then pouring the batter into the center. It’s most often eaten when partially cooked and gooey with a large spatula shaped spoon. Its tasty but also kind of pasty. A little like eating fried mac and cheese.

The process involves hot, smoking oil – so we had to put our coats and bags inside the bench seats, however, that still left our clothes smelling of oil the next day. The video below features our guide, Ayaka. She was lots of fun and has a great laugh…obviously!