Basement Bites

Last week I took a walk to a very large department store that's maybe four blocks from our apartment.  If you're wondering why I'm always referencing exactly how many blocks away places are, it's because I spend a lot of my time studying area maps and calculating exactly how far I can get from this apartment without collapsing and/or giving birth on the street.  Any trip I make also has to be worth enduring everyone else on the street giving me the side-eye like I'm a bomb.

Anyways, the store I went to is Matuzakaya.  I knew that once I got there I would only be able to do so much (it's HUGE) so I decided to investigate the basement.  I have read a lot about the basements in these huge department stores and how they are a good place to shop for food.  Yep, food.  Most department store basements here in Tokyo are full of an amazing variety of food vendors.  In fact, if you are on the hunt for exotic and imported foodstuffs you'll often be told to check out the basements of different department stores.

Sure enough, the basement was packed full of  box lunches, gift baskets, pastries, ice cream, weird seafood and more.  There was a small section that was supermarket-like and had some harder-to-find spices and baking supplies but it wasn't anything I haven't seen elsewhere.   I would've considered lunch there but I couldn't find anywhere to sit---seemed like it was all takeout.  I'm not sure if that's always the case in these basements.   So I didn't get anything but I did take some very poor iPhone photos.

these are pastries made to look like
pandas, turtles, etc.  very kawaii (cute), very japanese.

a vendor displaying jellies.  jellies are big here.
there are literally too many variations for me
to even begin to describe.  just....jellies.

the entire floor is food vendors

the most perfect apple pies I've ever seen

a sushi/veggie box?  heaven only knows what half that
mess is.  I do know it would most likely give me heartburn.

exactly how many different varieties of pickled
plums are there?  this many.

onigiri (stuffed rice balls), which aren't bad,
but you have to be careful about
what they're stuffed with

This is just a small selection of what they had, I will say that it was mostly Japanese food.  So I'm not sure if, based on this experience, I personally would recommend a department store basement to a foreigner looking for foods from home.  There are enough "international" supermarkets (check this one out, but be warned it's pricey) that I don't think this would be my first suggestion.  But if you just want to marvel at some Japanese food, it's a pretty good place to do it.