Shibamata and Monja

Quite close to where we live is a little neighbourhood called Shibamata. It's a pretty quiet place, but the Main Street from the train station is full of shops with older style Japanese architecture. They are also selling lots of traditional food - mochi and red bean galore, as well as all kinds of rice crackers and seaweed. 

It's a fun place to stroll around and take in - especially because it's not over filled with tourists. I met my friend Michiko there back in May just before I started attending the language course in Saitama and we had a good time exploring. Down near the river there is a Tora-san Museum, which we went to. Tora-san is a Japanese movie character from the 50s. He is in 48 different movies (all with a different female lead called "Madonna") actually played by the same actor for all of them. The museum was all in Japanese, but there was lots to look at and dioramas of traditional Japanese houses, movie sets and more to see. 

After this, Michiko asked where we should go for lunch and asked if I'd ever had monja before. I'd actually never even heard of it, so we did a quick google and found a place to go. Monja (or monja-yaki) is the Tokyo version of the much more well known okonomiyaki from Osaka (Hiroshima have their own okonomiyaki version too). It's the same kind of ingredients - cabbage and a batter with your choice of meat and flavours that you get to cook on the hot plate at the table. Instead of coming out like a big pancake though, monja batter is super runny and soft, so you scrape it off the hot plate bit by bit.

It was so different, strange at first, but really delicious. We had the kind with roe (fish eggs), mochi and cheese. I was so interested to see how the mochi (usually a sweet, dessert type food) would turn out, but it was amazing. Super thankful to Michiko for thinking to see if I'd had it before - honestly can't believe I haven't. Then again, my homestay mum from when I lived in Japan for a year in 2004, came from Osaka, so she only ever made Osaka style okonomiyaki at home. 

A whole new world of monja opened up, so when my Uncle visited from Sydney a week or two later, I took him and the girls to a monja restaurant in Asakusa for dinner (post coming soon!). We tried a curry beef flavoured one there too. Steve, who had been sick, and I got to have monja together in Shibamata when the girls were at guides one Sunday. 

We will be back to Shibamata one more time before we leave Tokyo in a few weeks, but I don't think we will have monja. We are going to see the fireworks festival by the river so hopefully will enjoy street food and kakigaori (shaved ice). So long as it doesn't rain!