A note on the words: mapo tofu is the Sichuan dish of tofu in a chili-and-bean-paste sauce, shot through with the numbing tingle of Sichuan pepper. Lu rou fan is the Taiwanese bowl of rice under slow-braised pork. Yodare-dori is a Sichuan dish of cold chicken served under a spiced sauce. Tomigaya is a quiet residential pocket just west of Yoyogi Park. Prices are as of this writing (August 2026).
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Kakan Tomigaya on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Right, this is Hangover Meshi. This time, mapo tofu. I heard that the mapo tofu at a place called Kakan is delicious, and that the original shop is in Kamakura. Looking into it a little — there is one in Tomigaya as well! Not so far away, so let us go! I made a reservation and headed straight over. You would think there is nothing around here, but lol there are plenty of stylish places!
Kakan itself is a snug little shop, but it was full of customers.
Mapo tofu 950 yen
Lu rou fan 950 yen
Hoeido Chinese noodles to finish 350 yen
Rice 200 yen
Besides the mapo tofu there is lu rou fan, and noodles or rice to finish the mapo with, and dan dan noodles.
The snack side of the menu is quite substantial too, and it feels well suited to a style of eating mapo tofu over a light drink rather than a heavy drinking session! I shall have what I want a la carte.
Beer first!
There was an unusual beer called Nemophila, so I ordered it.
A beer with something floral about the aroma and very easy to drink! (It costs 1,280 yen, so a touch pricey ^^)
A good-looking salad! There is green chili hidden in it, so here and there you think, hot! — but cilantro and acidity do go together! Delicious! Using grapefruit gives it sweetness too and feels just right. I crunched my way through it.
Ethnic boiled dumplings. They are boiled dumplings served with cilantro, and the sauce over them is delicious!
The thick, springy wrapper and the juicy meat inside — this is a fine thing!
Yodare-dori is a fairly large dish wherever you go.
If you ordered this alone by mistake you would be full on it alone! The yodare-dori sauce, scented with acidity and spices, goes extremely well with the clean-tasting chicken. The way the cashews make up for the lack of fat is a lovely touch. The heat is mild-to-medium. It was not a case of searingly hot at all.
Since it is oeuf mayo I assumed it would be something like an egg salad dressed with mayonnaise, but what came was a little different from what I imagined ^^
Charming in its own way. The combination of the sesame aroma, the mayonnaise and the nicely soft-set egg is good.
I had drunk a lot of the expensive beer, so I switched to Akaboshi lol
And here it is, the main event!!
Kakan’s mapo tofu! One bite and it is extremely good.
A rich flavor, with the Sichuan pepper coming through with a definite tingle. The sweetness is strong and the flavor deep. The heat is firm, the balance with the numbing pepper is good, and this looks as though it would suit rice very well. Noodles to finish feel entirely reasonable too. Delicious!
And this is the lu rou fan.
I did rather want to try it after all, so I ordered the small. The meltingly soft meat, the star anise and something like takana mustard greens really bring out the Taiwanese feel. Fragrant and delicious. Adding the last of the leftover mapo sauce is good too.
A little drinking, a pile of snacks, mapo tofu and lu rou fan, and I was full. Thoroughly satisfied!
That was good! They sell mapo tofu to take away in the shop, so — let us buy a souvenir! — and I bought one. It apparently keeps for a while, so the next time I long for mapo tofu I shall cook it and eat it. There are also the fried things and the noodle dishes I could not get to this time, so this is a shop I want to visit again.
Kakan Tomigaya branch (Chinese / Yoyogi-koen Station, Yoyogi-hachiman Station, Harajuku Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★☆☆ 3.7
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
