Meiji Jingu Open Air Food Court

The last time I was in an open air food court was in SS2 back in Petaling Jaya in Malaysia, that was roughly 10 years ago and I missed that scene, the memories of happy people sharing food, the scents stir frying woks and meats grilling as well as the amazing array of flavours that you can try on different food stalls is such a nice thought to recall. There is no such thing here in New Zealand and I guess if there is one the closest would be the flea market food stalls, I guess it’s just the weather, the culture, the array of different food and the importance of food for most Asians is what sets it apart. Fast forward to this date, I again experienced something similar, not in Malaysia, this time it’s in Japan.

After visiting Meiji Jingu on its busiest day (we did not know this until we were there), we stumbled upon this place when we’re walking on our way to Takeshita Dori. We thought it was another religious gathering but the scent coming from this place tells a different story, it was a massive open air food court where it contains at least more than 30 food stalls. There are many options to choose from like ramen, kushiyaki (yakitori) , grilled fish, grilled crab, yakisoba, fruits, mochi , drinks, etc. There were lots of people but one thing you will notice is that everything was orderly even the rubbish collection was quite organized. Even though there were tons of people it was not hard to find or wait for a seat since most of the Japanese were considerate, they will hurry up eating their food to give way for you.

There were many options like I said but after a good two rounds and checking what to have, I decided to try some ramen and some snow crab legs.

While my other half tried some grilled sausages and another flavour of ramen

Plus, we also gave this yakisoba a try.

This was street food at its finest, both ramen tasted amazing and that never let us down. The sausages tasted like those Vietnamese and Hong Kong sausages, not made purely of meat paste as you can feel the bits and chunks of meat on it.

The snow crabs I initially thought was made of real snow crabs but I was wrong it was a processed one definitely with extenders but I was good, I felt like eating premium crab balls in a very long form.

I love this place, if I ever lived in Tokyo I will be a regular patron here, the tons of options is one but the flavours are simply amazing. I just wish and hope that I will have the luxury of visiting this again in the future, definitely I will try the others that I missed. For the rest of what this place offers have a look at the gallery below.