Best street food and snacks at Shibamata

Tamagoyaki

Masumoto Kameido is a popular local restaurant, but it serves street food, too. Look out for the bunch of fresh Kameido daikon, a speciality of the region dating back to the Edo period (1603-1868), running under a stream of cool water. Right beside it is a stand with Masumoto’s street food offering: agemochi (deep-fried mochi basted in soy sauce and wrapped in nori) and sticks of steaming Japanese-style omelette. The latter, called tamagoyaki, comes in two flavours, regular and aonori (powdered seaweed), and we recommend trying them both.

Kusa dango

Back in the Edo period (1603-1868), kusa dango (rice flour dumplings) were a Shibamata speciality popular with pilgrims visiting the nearby Taishakuten temple. There are a lot of kusa dango vendors along Taishakuten Sando, but Toraya is our pick. The shop is over 100 years old and the dango are still made fresh daily. Topped with a house-made bean paste, the dumplings are springy and light and come in skewers of four for ¥150.

Seasonal and seaweed dango

The friendly staff here will guide you through the standard dango (rice flour dumplings) varieties as well as some more offbeat ones. For a savoury bite, try the age (deep-fried) dango or nori dango, which are best washed down with a cold beer. On the sweeter side, there’s a colourful selection of dango topped with seasonally flavoured shiro-an (white bean paste), such as yuzu in winter, cherry blossom and ryokucha (green tea) in spring, and chestnut in autumn.

Kusa mochi

Kusa-flavoured sweets are a speciality of the Katsushika area and they are made from local yomogi (Japanese mugwort), which is a popular ingredient in sweets for its distinctly grassy flavour and speckled green appearance. Takagiya started out over 100 years ago and sells a selection of sweets including kusa mochi (¥170) – mugwort-flavoured mochi rice cakes shaped like an English muffin and filled with red bean paste. The confection is lightly toasted, giving it a combination of chewy and crisp textures.

Butter-grilled sweet potato yokan

Yokan are traditional Japanese sweets made from sweetened bean or vegetable paste. To prepare the unique butter-grilled sweet potato yokan (butter-yaki imo-yokan; ¥200 each) at Ishii, Japanese sweet potato is mashed with a little salt, then shaped into blocks and fried on a teppan grill in sizzling butter. They’re served hot, fresh off the grill, which is the best way to enjoy them. Let the alluring smell of caramelised butter guide you to the shop.

Senbei

While you can find senbei (rice crackers) anywhere in Japan, getting handmade ones straight from the grill is something special. This 100-year-old shop offers sesame, aonori (powdered seaweed) and soy sauce-flavoured senbei. Although the range has grown to include miso, karashi pepper, granule sugar and sakura ebi (tiny dried prawns), the three original flavours are hard to beat. The crackers range from ¥70 to ¥130 apiece.

Motsuni and croquettes

Located right at the entrance to Taishakuten-Sando, Ojigi Chaya’s most popular dish is motsuni (¥500) – a steaming bowl of pork innards and vegetables in a light but umami broth, perfect for pairing with one of the shop’s beers. We also love the gyu-suji (beef tendon) croquette (¥150): potato and beef coated in breadcrumbs and fried until crisp, and its meat-free equivalent, the satsumaimo (sweet potato) croquette.