Local food streets in Tokyo

A narrow alley packed with grilled skewer bars — an evening drinking quarter.

A street given over to monjayaki restaurants.

A market street of some 400 stalls under the tracks between Ueno and Okachimachi. It grew out of postwar black-market candy (ame) stalls; today seafood and fruit vendors mix with standing bars, busy from noon into the evening.

Izakaya and yakitori joints packed under the brick railway arches, built in 1910, between Yurakucho and Shimbashi. A drinking strip with postwar black-market roots that fills with office workers after hours, a classic Tokyo evening scene.

Known for its secondhand bookshops, Jimbocho is also called a curry mecca. The story goes that students liked a dish they could eat one-handed while reading; European-style and spice curries now line the side streets.