A note on the words: this is a food court on the fourth floor of a building by Ikebukuro station’s north exit, sharing the floor with a large Chinese grocery. Six stalls, each from a different part of China and Taiwan. Ordering works differently from a normal restaurant — the steps are set out below.
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Yuugi Shokufu on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Drinkers, thank you for waiting. It is Hangover Meshi time.
I had heard there was a shop in Ikebukuro absolutely full of Chinese groceries.
And more than that, there is a food court inside it where you can eat Chinese food so uncompromising it does not feel like Japan at all. There is no way not to go. So, to Ikebukuro. The fourth floor of a building just outside the north exit. I come to Ikebukuro often and had no idea this was here.
Up the lift of a multi-tenant building to the fourth floor. Step out and there is the Chinese grocery — a big one. The space to the right of the shop is the food court. It was still fairly early and quiet, so I decided to eat first and look around the shop afterwards, and went straight to the food court.
Four counters like this in a row.
A Shanghainese stall, a Taiwanese stall, a Taiwanese breakfast stall, a Sichuanese stall, a Harbin, Heilongjiang stall and a xiaochi (small-eats) stall. All sorts, and it gets exciting. The menus are enormous, too. Some of them appear to be food-court branches of shops whose main premises are elsewhere in Tokyo. If it is good, I would want to visit the main shop.
For now I decided to order a few things that caught my eye.
👉 More from around Ikebukuro — I’m donut?, Ikebukuro
First, the Taiwanese stall, Huifengzhai. The main shop appears to be in Yutenji.
The ordering system at this food court is a little unusual.
- Order what you want at each stall’s counter
- They hand you a card with the bill on it
- Pay at the till by the food court entrance (often unattended, but say sumimasen and someone comes)
- Return the card to the stall that issued it, and they hand over the food
That is roughly it.
And return the dishes to the stall you got them from.
Taiwan Beer.
Falling apart and very good. Perfect with beer.
And the turnip cake — lo bak go, the daikon-radish cake. It is properly seasoned, so it is good just as it comes. That crumbling texture and the crisp outside are excellent. The faint sweetness of the radish is good too.
I ordered this because I wanted it again — the first time was on a trip to Taiwan.
One bite and that familiar, powerful smell fills your mouth.
This one really does divide people. Eaten with the pickled cabbage and the spicy sauce, it is good. Being deep-fried, the smell is somewhat held back, and it feels a good deal easier to eat than the grilled skewers you get where it comes from. It is a lot of food, though. Rather filling.
Next, a change of stall — the Sichuanese one.
I had actually tried to order these skewers first, and was told they were not ready yet. I waited a while and ordered once they were.
Potato, quail egg, tripe and wood ear mushroom. Not especially hot, and dipped in a sauce with a good chilli-and-spice aroma. Delicious.
Is the portion of yodare-dori not enormous at every shop that serves it?
This one is a serious amount too. But it is properly hot and the sauce has real depth. All sorts of spices in there, presumably. It feels like the real thing. The chicken is very juicy, and it works perfectly with beer.
Since the portions had been large across the board, I said I would be happy with a smaller one — and they gave me a discount on the douhua, the soft tofu pudding. The flavour is brown sugar, or rather —
— it tastes exactly like puffed-wheat candy: dark, malty and faintly burnt. Very good.
Afterwards I had a look around the grocery, which is full of interesting things and feels genuinely foreign. In the end I only bought a snack called Malawangzi, and that snack was extremely good. There were enormous numbers of seasonings too, so this is the place to come when I need something. The food court is at a decent level as well, so I think the right way to use it is to eat a little while you are here for the groceries. And if you like a stall, you can go to its main shop.
May you meet something good to eat today too.
Yuugi Shokufu (Chinese / Ikebukuro Station, Higashi-Ikebukuro Station, Toden-Zoshigaya Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.5
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
