Japanese department stores have outrageous food halls, basement palaces to rival whatever the Brits can cook up. We spent a little time drooling in a fine food establishment in Tokyo.
Forget a bustling, messy market look. The typical department store food hall has more in common with the makeup counters upstairs. Is that a Clinique counter? Nope, a pristine bakery. They even have food concierges. What?!
The star of the show, the fish counters. The corn is so good, they were giving out samples of it. That's it, plain corn to taste. No corn swathed in some sort of agro-biz goop that you'd see back home. Refreshing.
The packaging was as elaborate and fun as the food. A snack envelope example. Variety was not a problem; the endless road of kebabs.
Plenty of unidentifiable stuff to the western eater. It certainly tempted. It's true, you can buy fruit with a triple digit dollar price tag. The melon on the left? About $160.
very nice pictures! love the bright colours. but what?! $160 for a melon, seriously? I can't believe it. Who would want to buy that? Well, I just googled it, turns out the Japanese are obsessed with fruits (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-radio-and-tv-17352173), especially the Yubari King (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yubari_King). Interesting!
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