Tsukishima

Come up exit 7 of Tsukishima Station and you are already on Nishinaka-dori, the shopping street everyone calls monja street. The island under it did not exist before 1887. It was filled in between then and about 1892 as part of a Tokyo port plan, and factories, warehouses and workers' rowhouses followed, with Nishinaka-dori growing up between the Ishikawajima shipyard and an ironworks. Step off the main street and the old grid is still there: narrow alleys about 50 meters long with low two-storey houses on both sides, now hemmed in by tower blocks. Monjayaki is the reason most people come. It is a runny batter of flour, dashi and sauce poured into a ring of chopped cabbage on a hot griddle and eaten straight off the plate with a tiny spatula. It does not look like much. The Tsukishima Monja Association has about 50 member shops, from Kondo, trading here since 1950, to places with salt-butter or seafood versions. You can cook it yourself, but if you are unsure, ask and the staff will do it. Hours and closing days change without notice, so for a set time book through the association's website.