Togoshi Ginza

Togoshi Ginza is a shotengai, a neighborhood shopping street where locals buy groceries, get haircuts, pick up dinner and grab a snack on the way home. It runs about 1.3 kilometers through Shinagawa Ward, one of the longest shopping streets in the Kanto region, with around 400 shops on both sides.

Shotengai are disappearing across Japan. Big-box stores, convenience chains and online shopping have hollowed out thousands of them. Togoshi Ginza survived because it adapted: the three shopping associations that run the street have kept people coming with the korokke campaign, the information center and appearances on TV variety shows.

You won't find temples, museums or landmark buildings here. There's an information center in the middle of the street with multilingual tablets, and that's about all the tourist infrastructure there is. Nobody is trying to rent you a kimono or sell you a rickshaw ride. The signs are almost entirely in Japanese, and the shops assume you live nearby.

What you get is the best street in Tokyo for eating your way along for two hours on less than ¥2,000. The food is cheap, made fresh and meant to be eaten while you walk. If Tokyo's depachika are food shopping at its most polished, Togoshi Ginza sits at the other end: loud, unfussy and smelling of hot oil.

It looks like one continuous street, but three separate shopping associations run it.

Shoeikai (商栄会) covers the eastern end, closest to Togoshi Station on the Toei Asakusa Line. Coming by subway from central Tokyo, this is where you'll enter.

Chuogai (中央街) is the middle section around Togoshi-Ginza Station on the Tokyu Ikegami Line. It's the busiest part, with the information center and most of the well-known food shops.

Ginrokukai (銀六会) runs the western end. It's quieter and more residential, with fewer food vendors and more everyday shops: fishmongers, florists, hardware stores. This end empties out earliest in the evening and feels most like an ordinary neighborhood.

You'd never notice crossing from one section to the next unless someone pointed it out. Each association handles its own promotions, events and upkeep, and they work together on street-wide campaigns like the korokke one. Big Japanese shotengai are often split this way, since hundreds of independent shop owners with competing interests need more than one body to run things.

The easy plan is to start at one station, eat your way to the other and take a different train home. With only an hour, get off at Togoshi-Ginza Station in the middle and follow your nose in either direction.

The food is the reason to come. The street runs a "Togoshi Ginza Korokke" campaign in which around 20 shops each sell their own croquette, most for about ¥100. Butchers, fishmongers, delis and specialty shops all take part. You walk, buy croquettes from different shops and compare, and five or six of them still come in under ¥1,000. Then there's everything that isn't a croquette.

Croquettes and Fried Things

Togoshi Ginza calls itself the "holy land of korokke," and the claim holds up better than most marketing. Shops selling freshly fried croquettes, menchi katsu (minced meat cutlets) and other deep-fried food are packed unusually close together. You hear oil sizzling from the street, and some shops announce fresh batches over speakers.

Goto Kamaboko-ten (後藤蒲鉾店) is usually the first shop people mention. It has been here for over 60 years and started out making satsuma-age fish cakes. The one to get is the oden korokke, a potato croquette with oden ingredients like daikon radish in the middle. It sounds odd and tastes good. There's a small eat-in area too, where you can sit down with oden and a drink.

Katabami Seiniku-ten (かたばみ精肉店) is a butcher with a prepared-food counter that locals use as a deli. People come for the ham cutlet and menchi katsu. The Iwanaka pork menchi katsu costs a bit more and is worth it. Their potato croquette is fine, but the meat options are better.

Grilled Soup Dumplings

Ryuki (龍輝) is a Chinese restaurant that does yaki-shoronpo (grilled soup dumplings) and chicken congee. It started here before opening other branches. Order the soup dumplings from the takeout window on the right side of the shop and eat them hot.

Yakitori

Yakitoriya Ryuhou (やきとり家 竜鳳) gets lines for cheap takeout yakitori, with chicken gizzard skewers at about ¥150. You can eat in, but most people grab a few skewers and keep walking.

Curry Bread

Harimaya (ハリマヤ) sells Togoshi Ginza curry bread, a filled, deep-fried bread that has become a local specialty. There's a very spicy version if you want heat. One is close to a small meal.

Everything Else

You'll also find handmade shumai, dango, gelato, yakiimo (roasted sweet potato) in winter, and whatever seasonal things the shops put out front. Don't plan too carefully. Walk, smell something good, buy it. A shop with a line usually deserves it.

Bring cash, because plenty of shops take nothing else and card acceptance is hit and miss. Pace yourself past the first three shops, since the good food is spread along the whole length. At ¥100 a croquette, a mediocre one costs you about what a vending machine drink does, so try plenty.

People here shop for daily life first and snacks second. Between the food stalls you'll see:

• Fishmongers with the day's catch displayed on ice
• Small clothing shops selling practical items, not fashion
• A 100-yen shop
• Hardware stores
• Florists
• A few bookstores
• The Togoshi Ginza mascot character "Gin-chan" merchandise at the information center

The shopping association created Gin-chan as branding, one of many small efforts to give the street an identity. Other shotengai in Tokyo have their own mascots, stamp cards and seasonal events, all organized by the shopkeepers who share the street.

Near the shopping street there's also Togoshi Ginza Onsen, a public bathhouse. After two hours of walking and eating, a soak is a decent idea. It's a local sento with basic facilities and sento prices, so don't expect a spa.

The street is most interesting on weekday late afternoons, when residents do their after-work shopping. Weekends are busier and have less of that feel. On a weekday you're watching a neighborhood go about its business.

Two stations serve Togoshi Ginza, on different lines and at different points along the street, so you can come in one way and leave another without backtracking.

Togoshi-Ginza Station (戸越銀座駅) is on the Tokyu Ikegami Line and drops you in the middle of the street, at the busiest section. From Shibuya, take the JR Yamanote Line to Gotanda and change to the Ikegami Line. From west Tokyo this is the easier way in.

Togoshi Station (戸越駅) is on the Toei Asakusa Line, at the eastern end. Use it if you're coming from Asakusa, Nihombashi or anywhere else on the Asakusa Line.

Walking the whole street between the two stations takes about 20 minutes without stopping. With food stops, plan on 90 minutes to two hours.

Best timing: Weekday afternoons, roughly 3pm to 6pm. Shops are open, the fryers are going, and the after-work crowd fills the street.

Weekends are fine but crowded, especially around noon, and some shops sell out of their popular items by early afternoon.

Avoid: Monday and Tuesday, when some shops close, and mornings before 11am, when many food shops haven't started frying.

Rain: Some of the street is covered and some isn't. Light rain won't spoil the walk, but heavy rain makes the open stretches miserable.

Togoshi Ginza isn't next to any major sight, which is partly why it stays local. It still fits into a full day.

From Nakameguro: Take the Hibiya Line to Ebisu, the JR Yamanote Line to Gotanda, then one stop on the Ikegami Line to Togoshi-Ginza. Nakameguro's design-minded cafes in the morning and Togoshi Ginza's street food in the afternoon go well together.

From Gotanda: Walk. It's about 15 minutes from Gotanda Station to the eastern end of the street, and Gotanda has good ramen if you'd like a sit-down meal first.

To Shinagawa: Togoshi Station on the Asakusa Line runs to Sengakuji, and many trains continue onto the Keikyu Line to Shinagawa, next to JR Shinagawa. Handy if you're catching a Shinkansen after eating.

Full day idea: Tsukiji in the morning for market food, Togoshi Ginza in the afternoon for shotengai food. The Asakusa Line links the two with one change at Higashi-Ginza.

Togoshi Ginza won't do much for your Instagram. Visually it's shop fronts, signs, plastic food displays and narrow sidewalks, with no cherry blossom canals, notable buildings or moody old kissaten. For a photo itinerary, skip it.

There's no heritage to see either. The 1923 bricks were paved over long ago, and the history survives only in the name and in the street still being here.

Nor is it Yanesen-style "old Tokyo," with weathered wood and temple grounds. Togoshi Ginza is modern and commercial. Whatever charm it has comes from shops doing their jobs and people buying what they need, with food cooked and eaten on the spot.

It's also out of the way, in Shinagawa Ward, south of where most visitors spend their time. You won't wander into it between sights. You have to decide to come and take a train to a street that doesn't advertise itself.

For a century, 400 shops have competed every day for the same neighborhood customers. The food is good because it has to be, and prices stay low because the buyers are regulars.

If you want a food walk that feels like the Tokyo locals live in, come here. Budget two hours and ¥2,000, and take the train home from the far end.

Togoshi Ginza is the kind of place that turns up on Ordinary Tokyo, Hinomaru One's tour of everyday Tokyo rather than its landmarks. The street is a straight line, so you don't need help finding your way. A guide helps with which shops to stop at, what to order and how to read a shotengai with no English signage. You can walk it alone easily enough, but you'll eat better with someone who has done it fifty times.