IV. Epicurean Information (Part 2) Destination: Kiwaradana in the Late Meiji Period

Kiwaradana is an alley that became lined with restaurants from the end of the Edo period to the Meiji period. It was just near Nihonbashi, on the north side of Coredo Nihonbashi, turning east from Chuo-dori Street. This area is undergoing redevelopment sparsely populated today with only two stone monuments, i.e., The Setting of the Natsume Soseki’s Masterpieces and Shirokiya’s Famous Water-Well (see Part 1 ) telling the history there. However, in the past, the alley was recognized as a gorgeous area located on the side of Shirokiya in Tori 1-Chome.

The alley came to earn popularity among epicures widely enough to be also known as Shokusho Jinmichi (literally a new road for eating too much). It was a new famous spot that was born in the new urban city transitioned from Edo to Tokyo.

As to the Meiji period, it was an era when mass media, such as newspapers and magazines, emerged. However, there was nothing like a gourmet guide with plenty of pictures and detailed information like today. In Part 1, I explored why many restaurants gathered along the alley, so I would like to trace the history back through limited printed information in order to find how Kiwaradana developed during the Meiji period.

In Kiyu Shoran [Enjoyable Entertainments and Pleasant Viewing Spots], an essay written about the customs in Edo by Kitamura Intei (the introduction was written in 1830), the origin of a tempura restaurant is explained together with the name of the alley Kiwaradana. According to this essay, shortly before the Bunka Era (1804–1818), a man called Yoshibei began sell deep-fried fresh seafood from a stall (called Yatai) located at the south end of the Nihonbashi bridge. Soon some individuals with unusual tastes came to Yoshibei’s house located on Kiwaradana to eat the food (i.e., tempura), and this dramatically changed tempura, which had been a menu only for stand-up-eating at a stall, to one of exquisitely prepared dishes eaten at a Japanese-style banquet.

It is not known about what happened to Yoshibei’s restaurant after that, but there was another restaurant that did business as a stall at the riverside like Yoshibei and then became popular after opening a restaurant on Kiwaradana. It was an Izakaya (inexpensive Japanese-style pub) called Ishida, featuring reasonable and delicious chameshi (rice cooked with tea) and ankake dofu (tofu topped with thickened sauce). The name was almost always mentioned when Kiwaradana was introduced.

Ishida was also commonly known as the name Akaando. Or, it is likely that this name was better known among people. In the document Nihonbashi-ku Shi [History of Nihonbashi Ward], there is an article saying, “As there is a signboard showing Akaando on the roof, the restaurant is simply called so though its correct trade name is Ishida,” and some articles introducing Ishida refer to it only as “Akaando.”

The origin of Ishida, also called Akaando, is “A small stall that started business at the foot of the Nihonbashi bridge to offer simple meals before the Meiji Restoration, which has become one of special spots in and around Nihonbashi today and the owner has become one of wealthy persons” (Nihonbashi-ku Shi). Because of the phrase saying “offer simple meals,” it is obvious that Ishida was originally a set menu restaurant called Teishokuya today, offering a set menu comprise of a bowl of rice and simple daily dishes. But after opening a restaurant on Kiwaradana, it became the one referred to as the special spot of Nihonbashi and the owner became a person of wealth. It is exactly the success story in Nihonbashi.

The period from the end of the Edo period to the Meiji period, when Kiwaradana developed, was also an era when the common people’s ways of dining out changed significantly from the outdoors to the indoors. Even before that era, there had been some tea houses for fine dining and the like, but the places common people were familiar with in dining out had been limited to stalls or Izakaya pubs that not only served simple dishes and sake but also sold simmered foods. Many of such Izakaya pubs had their guests sit on stools (called Shogi) placed on the earthen floors or on tatami-matted seating areas elevated slightly, and they were open to streets. It was in the Meiji period that the style of eating in a closed space of a restaurant using a table and chairs became popular.

Such restaurants went on increasing in Tokyo in the late Meiji period.  According to Tokyo-shi Tokei Nenpyo [Annual statistics of the City of Tokio], the number of entertainment restaurants was 361 and that of dining facilities is 3,473 in 1898, however, those numbers in total increased by about 1.7 times to 513 and 6,174 respectively in 1905. As the number of dining facilities was increasing year after year, a long-awaited medium featuring “food for fun” emerged; Japan’s first gourmet magazine Gekkan Shokudoraku [Monthly Epicurism], published for the first time in April 1905.

The context of starting the publication of this magazine for the first time can be traced back to January 1903, two years before the publication when Kuidoraku [Epicurism], a serialized gourmet novel written by Murai Gensai with the same title as the said magazine started in the Hochi Shimbun, became a hit. As food became a widespread public concern following the prosperity of the food-service industry, a gourmet magazine emerged as a new medium.

Kiwaradana was featured in Gekkan Kuidoraku [Monthly Epicurism] earlier. It appeared for the first time in issue No. 5 of volume 1, which was published in October 1905, the year when the magazine was first published, and its frontispiece featured the picture of Kiwaradana. Kiwaradana is lined with wooden houses with tiled roofs, and a lamppost stands alone. The scenery does not seem to be so vigorous, but the description of the picture is provided in issue No. 6 of volume 1 published next in November as follows:

〈Kiwaradana, an alley next to the kimono shop Nihonbashi Shirokiya, is also called Shokusho Jinmichi and referred to as a place where restaurants and shops that offer delicious foods gather. All the foods available here, including Umezono’s Shiruko, Chuka’s Kimpura, Akaando’s Chameshi, Mikiya’s chicken, and others, make your mouth water. Persons who have a sweet tooth come out licking their lips with sugar, and drinkers belch while tapping their wallets. There is no restaurant that is not thriving.〉

Persons who have a sweet tooth come out licking their lips with sugar, and drinkers belch while tapping their wallets … this simple expression describes the people with hearty appetites gathering to this alley aptly. In addition, the description also includes a small amount of information about restaurants located there. I will give a brief explanation about restaurants other than Akaando (Ishida).

・Umezono
Umezono is a long-established Kanmi-dokoro (Japanese sweet shop) whose main shop is located in Asakusa still now, originating from a teahouse (Chaya) opened in 1854 on the premise of Baion-in Temple, the branch temple of Senso-ji Temple. I love Awa-zenzai (sweetened bean paste over mochi made of millet), which is said to have been sold by the shop for the first time, but I did not know that Umezono had a shop on Kiwaradana. It is not certain when Umezono opened a shop there, but from the section about the Shiruko cafes and shops in Tokyo Ryuko Saikenki [Detailed Report on the Trend in Tokyo] published in 1885, which rates well-reputed restaurants and shops, you can see the name Kiwaradana Umezono was already listed.

・Chuka (Chukatei)
Though only the name Chuka is seen, it means Chukatei, which became famous as a fine tea-ceremony dish restaurant. Kimpura refers to tempura coated differently with batter made of egg yolk and white flour. There is another theory that buckwheat flour was used instead of white flour. From other materials, it is found that Chukatei’s uzura-wan (a bowl of clear soup with chopped quail meat balls) and anago no miso-zuke (conger eel marinated in miso) were also popular in addition to kimpura. However, as these dishes were expensive, it was probably quite difficult for ordinary people to enjoy them in this restaurant.

・Mikiya
Mikiya offered chicken dishes. In addition to Mikiya, there were at least two other chicken dish restaurants in Kiwaradana, which suggests that chicken dishes were popular menus at that time. Those two restaurants were Hatsune located across the alley from Mikiya and Numata located on the Naka-dori street side of the alley opposite the main street. The article of the Yomiuri Shimbun as of August 28, 1909, said that Mikiya offered good sake and dishes other than chicken ones were also available, Hatsune had nice tatami-matted seating areas and offered delicious chicken dishes, and Numata featured genial waitresses. I think people who visited Kiwaradana must have had their own favorite restaurants.

In addition, Kiwaradana collected an outstandingly wide range of foods in the Meiji period, including gourmet restaurants in Edo such as sushi restaurants, eel restaurants and soba noodle restaurants, confectionery shops such as Japanese cracker shops and candy shops, Gyu-nabe (Japanese hot pot with beef and vegetables) restaurants and Western food restaurants. It was really a place where various restaurants gathered to offer delicious foods, being true to the name of Shokusho Jinmichi. People’s expectations for Kiwaradana as a place where they would be able to eat anything they want must have been a sufficient reason for attracting them to this alley.

So, what kinds of scenes were actually seen in the well-reputed restaurants and shops on Kiwaradana? Let’s look into the izakaya pub Ishida based on the information I collected.

Soon after entering the alley on the Shirokiya side of the main street (presently the Chuo-dori Street), between Ban Denbei’s tatami rush shop and a long-established soba noodle restaurant Tokyoan that has been around since the Edo period, you can see a one-storied house with a red paper-enclosed lantern on the left side. The width of the house is around 4 ken and a half (around 8 m). When you go into the house passing under a noren (short split curtain) made of black cotton on which the letters of “Chameshi” are dyed diagonally, you can see an earthen floor running through the middle and a wide tatami-matted seating area elevated slightly is situated on each side of the floor. However, the wide area is crowded with many previous visitors taking up their places in uproar. When you are confused about where to sit, a waitress urges you on with a cushion with her hand, saying, “Come on, sit down!” Just after squeezing your bottoms into a small gap in a hurry and feeling relieved, you are now faced with a huge list of menus and rack your brain over what to order.

The specialty of this pub is, definitely, chameshi (rice cooled with tea). And then, you should never fail to order ankake dofu (tofu topped with thickened sauce) and miso soup with hanpen (fish minced and steamed) and tofu to finish. In addition, you can enjoy any side dishes for sake here, including simmered potato, octopus, dried cod and beans, iridori (chicken fried and simmered in sweet soy sauce together with vegetables), shinoda-maki (abura-age [deep-fried bean curd] rolled with ingredients), sashimi, vinegared octopus, and other dishes.

You select some side dishes along with sake. Now, you can settle down and look around to find there are many craftsmen in a livery coat, looking like a master. They are drinking with gusto, with their dusky-red tanned faces flushed further. Feeling that a reasonable and simple pub like this is nice differing from fine dining, you automatically reach for the side dishes and sake that are placed in front of you.

That is, Ishida seems to have been thriving so much. Sanyutei Ensho (1900–1979), a comic storyteller who performed comic storytelling (rakugo) at a vaudeville theater called Kiwaratei located on Kiwaradana, described this pub in detail as his familiar one in his writing Edo Sanpo [Strolls in Edo], saying, “You can eat a set menu of ankake-dofu, iridori, shinoda-maki, and chameshi, which is brought to me all the way from the kitchen, for only 10 sen.” It is not certain when he wrote this, but the price of a bowl of soba noodles in 1912 was around 3 sen, so the set menu with various side dishes for 10 sen was quite reasonable. I am sure a pub like this would be thriving even if it were to exist today.

Ishida was such a popular pub as described above, but I could not find when it disappeared definitely. Tokyo Meibutsu Tabearuki [Records on Eating and Drinking Specialties in Tokyo] edited by the Household Dept. of the newspaper publisher Jiji Shinpo, published by Seiwado Shobo in 1930, has a section about Shokusho Jinmichi, in which a record on visiting Ishida is stated. There seem to have been some restaurants that pulled out of Kiwaradana due to the Great Kanto Earthquake, but Ishida was maybe doing business until before the World War II after rebuilding from the earthquake.

In a corner of Tokyo as a capital city that faced a new era after the abolishment of the class system, various restaurants and shops ranging from long-established ones to high class ones and casual izakaya pubs gathered simultaneously, and people who learned to enjoy foods tried restaurants or shops they had wanted to visit according to the information gained from newspapers and magazines. Thus Kiwaradana, even if such an alley is not uncommon today, is a fantastic alley that was developed by the free atmosphere of that era, enjoying prosperity with the wind of new media behind its sails.

References:
Annual statistics of the City of Tokio No.3 (1903) edited by Tokyo-shi, Tokyo-shi
Annual statistics of the City of Tokio No.4 (1907) edited by Tokyo-shi, Tokyo-shi
The front and back sides of Tokyo – Eight Hundred and Eight Towns (1914) Sanin Koji, Suzuki Shoten
History of Nihonbashi Ward, Vol. 4 (1916) edited by Nihonbashi-ku of Tokyo-shi, Nihonbashi-ku of Tokyo-shi
Reprinted edition, Encyclopedia of Newly Selected Famous Places in Tokyo, Vol. 28 (1973) Kokushokankokai (first edition was published by Toyodo in 1901)
Strolls in Edo <Part 1> (1986) Sanyutei Ensho, Asahi Bunko (The first edition was published by Shueisha in 1978)
Chronology of Prices: Meiji/Taisho/Showa (1988) edited by Shukan Asahi, The Asahi Shimbun Company
Guide to Commerce in the Meiji Period (2003) Sadanosuke Nakada, Chikuma Gakugei Bunko (The first edition was published by Seia Sensho in 1969)
Guide to Commerce in the Meiji Period <Continued> (2004) Sadanosuke Nakada, Chikuma Gakugei Bunko (The first edition was published by Seia Sensho in 1974)
A Man Who Created a Salon for Penmen of the Taisho Period: Okuda Komazo and Maison Konosu (2015) Mari Okuda, Genki Shobou