00:01 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Ameyoko Market in Tokyo. This is one of my favorite places—I like to go for outdoor seating restaurants. It's kind of rare to find in Tokyo. It surprises a lot of visitors. You can see here's a very famous one that's been renovated, and there are a couple of others on the other side of the tracks in Ameyoko facing the street side. They typically open up for lunch these days because of the tourists. But as I say, it's something that surprises visitors, especially from Europe. There's just not a lot of outdoor cafe seating. You can see there's a place over there. So we're going to go take a look at the menus and explore this, and the history behind it—because there's some history behind outdoor seating in cafes and why it's quite limited.

00:53 John Daub: Ameyoko Market, if you don't know where this place is, it's very central in Tokyo—off the Yamanote Line, which is Okachimachi Station, just two stations away from Tokyo Station. There's Tokyo Station, Kanda, Okachimachi, then Ueno, which is in the north part of Tokyo—not that far away from Asakusa. You can walk here from Akihabara or Asakusa or Tokyo Station, probably in about 30 minutes from each of those places, and it's a nice walk. Ameyoko Shopping Street is probably the cheapest, most discounted place to buy snacks and candy and goods like this—but also takoyaki, the cheapest in the country. On the right side right now, as you see on Google Maps, is Ameyoko Street Market. On the left side, there are some old Showa-era buildings that go back maybe 50, 60 years—that's where you'll find a lot of other cafes and restaurants that have outdoor seating. This area is kind of famous for it because it's a little bit looser here than in other parts like Shibuya, Shinjuku, etc. But we're starting to see a little bit of a comeback in the city—historically, Japan has not had it.

02:09 John Daub: This is one of my favorite places to come in the city, and it's authentic. If you compare Tsukiji Outer Market to Okachimachi Ameyoko, Ameyoko certainly is much more authentic than Tsukiji because the fish market is left—this place has always been the black market historically, so you still find a lot of those shops. There's a lot of throwbacks to the occupation of the American troops here in the 1950s—they were here until 1956—and that era, you can feel that vibe still to this day, although more and more we're starting to lose it. So we're going to go take a look at the menu here at Ameyoko Market. Let me see if I can pull up a video to show you the other side—the signal has been really bad in Ameyoko over the last couple of months, harder and harder to make. Bradshaw Studios in the house, thank you—it's really hard to stream here just because the signal is not as strong on the other side, maybe because there's too many people. But you can see it's very lively at this time, especially lunchtime from around 11 o'clock till about 3 o'clock—probably the peak—and after about 3 to 4 o'clock, it kind of slows down, then for dinner when the lights go down, this place starts to buzz again because there's outdoor seating along the street markets.

03:33 John Daub: They get out these stools—maybe the regulations are a little loosened at that time—and you can sit outside along this very busy street, or you can come underneath the Yamanote Line or some of the restaurants on the other side. That's what I'm going to show you today, as well as talk about the history of this. But let's go take a look at the menu at this particular place—it looks like it is open for lunch, not a lot of people out at this restaurant. The one across the street just looks like it just opened up. I think I got a kakigori (shaved ice) on the other side a few years ago—they've been renovating it. I think they were selling clothes, then they had a cafe, then they found that the cafe was doing better, so they stopped selling clothes and just do the cafe full time. That's what seems to be what the tourists want, and it's a really cool corner to hang out in, just people watch—you can see a lot of action going on in the corner here, the coffee beer place. And this is a kind of a Showa-looking place—I think they've dirtied it down by design.

04:32 John Daub: The menu is very izakaya (Japanese pub)-y—basically, you just order a bunch of food and share it with friends, or if you're here by yourself, you can come by yourself and probably someone will invite you to their table if you have a big smile on your face. Oh, there's some tataki—the prices are higher here, I'm starting to notice, maybe 25% more than a couple of years ago, I think just because the tourists are here and they're paying more—they understand the market a lot better than I do. There could be dual pricing as well—we're starting to see more and more of that in the city, and I'll cover that as we get into 2026 on this channel. There's some korokke (croquettes)—meat korokke, which are battered up and rolled in some breadcrumbs and then deep fried—they're very good. There's a gyukatsu (beef cutlet) for 1299 yen, that's about $8 for that—it looks really good, though it doesn't tell you what kind of beef. It's not always going to be wagyu—sometimes they use Aussie beef, which is pretty good as well, just a different kind of juiciness to it. And of course, they have yakitori (grilled skewers)—that's really kind of expensive, one stick for 299 yen with spice. You can usually get them for 100 yen or 150 yen, but I think you can't beat the atmosphere sitting outside—and again, a lot of the people eating there are tourists, so something to point out, but it's a nifty place to sit.

06:20 John Daub: Let's walk over here—we're going to take a look at this menu, there's another side cafe, and I'm starting to see more chairs outside—that's not typical in Japan, and there's reasons why. A lot of it in this area in particular are zoning rules, zoning laws. I asked ChatGPT to kind of summarize this for us—I asked the question why they don't have so much out there. Japan does have some outdoor seating, especially in touristy areas or hip neighborhoods like Omotesando, Daikanyama, Kyoto's riverside spots—but overall, compared to Europe and even cities like New York, it's kind of rare. The reasons: limited sidewalk space—Tokyo and many other cities have narrow sidewalks with space at a premium, restaurants often prioritize indoor seating over spilling out onto the street. In busy areas like Shibuya, Ginza, there's simply no room—now, the alleys in Ginza, they also have some outdoor seating, you have to kind of find it, but when you do, yeah, they're usually in places near the highway or places that have a lot of extra space to put some stools out there.

07:21 John Daub: Strict regulations—this is the thing with Tokyo: tight urban planning rules using public sidewalks for commercial purposes requires permits, permission—a lot of them don't have it. I remember the Okachimachi here would have the tables even spreading out more onto the streets around 5 p.m., and you know what happened? The police made them wait—they made them push the tables back, and then in the end, they would wait until like 5 p.m. when the security patrol would go off duty to do it, which is very gray area. That's sort of this area—they're kind of rule breakers in this area a little bit. I guess there's one reason why you can sort of still bargain in Okachimachi—but the zoning rules are quite strict, I think it's changing a little bit because this is what tourists want. People want to come and eat outside, feel the city. Cleanliness culture—there's a strong emphasis on cleanliness and order; outdoor eating might risk attracting trash, birds, insects, things Japanese business owners and customers would like to avoid. Eating neatly and quietly is a cultural norm, making outdoor cafe bustle less appealing to locals.

08:26 John Daub: Noise sensitivity in the neighborhood—neighborhoods don't want a lot of noise, especially at night after 10 p.m., so that may be one thing that they kind of clamp down on, depending on it—and the smoke and the noise; smoking is also an issue. The city is pretty much smoke-free now, especially indoors. Weather and seasonal constraints—you don't want to be outside in the summer, you want to be in the air conditioning—trust me on that one. Outdoor seating is less reliable—investments securitize in autumn seasons are brief, and businesses might find the effort not worth it. Traditional Japanese architecture and dining culture have long favored indoor interior spaces like izakaya and tatami rooms—the concept of lingering on a terrace for hours with a coffee isn't deeply rooted in local habits. When I came here, there was like no spots for eating—you just have to get a beer and sit out in the park. Yoyogi, Nakameguro, Ebisu have the most sidewalk cafes, department store rooftops—you know, there's a lot of beer gardens on the rooftops there, a place I like to go in the summertime with friends, though I haven't been in years. That's what happens when you have a child and you go home to your family every night—so I don't go out as much as I used to in the past, which is actually quite good.

09:44 John Daub: If you have any questions, please, I encourage you to ask. This live stream, of course, is brought to you by our Patreon community—this is this month's postcard, our family underneath the cherry blossoms. You can see how big Leo has gotten—there's a QR code to watch a video that I made for you regarding this, and yeah, on the back, there's another shot of this location in Tokyo. The cherry blossoms are gone now, except in Aomori up there in Hirosaki—it's at full bloom, looking stunning. And my friend Greg was just at the Ashikaga Flower Park and he said, wow, it's really nice up there—different flowers blooming at different times, so you can go all over the country and find something real beautiful. Thank you to my Patreon supporters—we're going to be doing more stuff for them in the coming weeks and months, including bringing back the live Q&A and doing it for trip planning, then sharing that trip planning with friends and family. I'm going to be doing a lot of stuff with everybody—because those that have questions and have itinerary issues, I get on Instagram maybe dozens every day. It's quite a lot of people saying, I'm coming to Japan at this time—could you help me out? And like, yeah, I want to, but I got to help everybody out. So maybe this is something that there's a huge desire for—since I've been here for more than half my life, and every prefecture I've been to maybe four or five times, I've been to almost all the tourist attractions, I think—I'm a pretty good person to be able to help people with their planning. So that might be something that we do live on this channel, but in particular, giving our Patreon supporters the priority because they support the channel and make everything happen.

11:27 John Daub: I'm noticing something here—every time I pass this building, I'm just wondering when they're going to tear it down. They started the one right here, and you can see this 1980s-looking building is ripe for deletion—look at that old retro light from the 1980s, you can tell it's like that metal, the roundness of it; it was a big deal back in the day, but now certainly it looks the part. Bubble-era building right here—this will probably be gone in the next six months, it looks like it's already been boarded up. And here's a new building that just popped up—so you can see that Tokyo is really starting to add in total redevelopment because of the earthquake—everyone's been talking about the big one, and Tokyo's getting ready day by day. There's some big changes in the city—this is the other side of the Yamanote Line. Michael Sassano's in the house—hi brother, mahalo. This, it can't get any better than this—and you know what? In just two weeks or so, we're going to be seeing our mutual friend, our sister from another mister—can you see this? We'll see Bradania here in Japan—I'm so looking forward to it, we're trying to see if we can go out and do some stuff together. So we are waiting for Michael to make his trip to Japan—oh my goodness, and with UFO Bob, let's see if we can get everybody out here.

14:01 John Daub: This might be—I don't know if I should tell you guys, but when I did go out and eat more with my friends, especially with the NHK group after a shoot, this is what I was like—there's only three or four of these Hamachan. But we would eat here—not this one, there's one in Shibuya as well, but this one has outdoor seating, and you can see they have it up for lunch. I guess the zoning rules or it's quite tight with the cars going by here—but this Hamachan has massive portions of tempura, and you would eat just the tempura, you don't have to get the rice or anything—but you'd eat the tempura with grated daikon (Japanese radish) with some tentsuyu or dashi. So Hamachan is definitely a good go-to—I don't know if you can reserve a spot outside, there's the phone number, but if your hotel's nearby, you can say I'd like to make a reservation, you can see if you can do it—but it will get quite busy; the earlier you come to plant your butt on one of these stools, the better the chances that you get a chair. You can see there's also some—these are new; there's just a lot of shops that are now putting out outdoor seating. Look at this—I didn't notice this; this is a haisai (Okinawan greeting)—this is all brand new, and we'll walk underneath here.

15:36 John Daub: This shop's been here for a while, and you can see they have some sort of outdoor bench seating with yakitori—but because there's so many tourists, I have noticed that the price is going up. This one on the left side, I'm going to be a little bit sensitive because there's people eating here—this has been here for decades, the one with the green canopy there. Wow, look—the tables go underneath the Yamanote Line here. Oh, that looks good—unagi (eel) probably not domestic, so it's something that you have to consider. This green one I have been to many times including in 2010 when I filmed the Ameyoko episode—me and the NHK cameraman and staff and everybody went here for kanpai (cheers), and that's still around, so that's kind of nice. It's nice to see how over the years some of the old drinking holes are good—and if you are a solo traveler, you come to a place like this, locals in the past would invite you over to eat with them because they're just kind of curious. Here's another place with the canopy eating outside—and I'm saving this for last; I'm actually here to get the daimyo packages.

16:49 John Daub: This is a famous place for just candy—not just because it's cheaper, just because they got everything, all the new stuff—so I'm out here looking for some stuff for the daimyo packages; I'm putting together a matcha box. A lot of the stuff, because the harvest is this month, a lot of the stuff is going to be matcha-based in this package for Patreon supporters, the daimyo tier—thanks guys for supporting. There's a bunch of you and we're going to load it up with matcha goodies—there's a lot of stuff in here. Again, Ameyoko is ame (candy) meaning candy, ame also meaning America—so there's a lot of goodies in here; look at the stairway, they just load it up with all these sweets and confections, all these kind of neat stuff. And then I'll put a special regional item, a box item that has a lot more value—the Kit Kats are out here, the strawberry shortcake is the big one and the matcha latte. But this is a place where you come and check it out—Beckin, thank you for being a member for 24 months. All right, now this is where the signal probably ends—I'm not sure if you can see it, but this is where the signal ends, so I'm going to show you some of the outdoor eateries in Tokyo.

18:04 John Daub: Again, this is one of my favorite places—but I think Nakameguro, Omotesando, these areas are more upscale, so you're going to get much cleaner and much more expensive fare, but you'll get that more European type of feel—and this is more like an Asian type of feel. Look at this place just has benches outside—it's really popping on this side of the Yamanote track; this side has changed a lot, it has become more ethnic. It's more like Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Korea, which has a much better street food scene than Japan—so you'll see that here, and I'm just going to stop right here because it's too crowded at the moment, but you'll find a lot of street food out here. A lot of it is not Japanese—most of it is ethnic, which is really good—and there are immigrants, people who have moved here, maybe someone who's married a Japanese spouse and opened up a business; they bought out an old owner who no longer could manage the shop, and the sons and daughters didn't want to do it, so they would buy it out and set up a restaurant. And it's buzzing with especially like Korean street food—you'll find a lot of Korean restaurants and Thai restaurants. And then what I love about it is the sound, the sound of the trains going by—it's just such a nice feeling because you can feel Tokyo, you feel the beat of Tokyo here, like the people, the rhythm of the city—it has that old world feel to it. And I know it's changing a lot, Ameyoko—but if you compare it to Tsukiji, there's no comparison; this is just so much more authentic. However, there's so many more tourists here, so you do have to get here early to get a seat at a restaurant in order to secure your spot—especially if you have a family; you park your butt there, stay there for a couple of hours, have some fun—but I would say certainly cheaper than Omotesando or Shibuya.

20:33 John Daub: Where are you guys all watching from? Make sure you hit that like button so you get all the suggestions on this channel—and the new on the main channel; people have been complaining that they're not being suggested the new video, but it's there—this one is an edited video, very in-depth on the snack bar culture, these old very narrow alleyway shops. You get a chance to see this video on the main channel, which is a separate channel—this is all live streams on this channel, and it's edited videos on the other channel; this one, I guess, more high quality, I would say—this channel is pretty high quality though. Look at that strawberry salesman—they know what the tourists like; everybody's into the channel, I'm gonna go get some Japanese strawberries right now—the season ends probably in a couple of weeks too, right after Golden Week, you start to see it taper off. But tons of people enjoying street food, and the vibe of the city is kind of nice here. So what do you guys think? Leave me a comment below—where is your favorite place to eat out in Tokyo?

21:47 John Daub: I did ask ChatGPT to list the top 10 places—and a lot of them were in Aoyama, Daikanyama, Omotesando—but one of my favorites is the T.Y. Harbor, Tennoz Isle—it's so beautiful, it started in 1997, a year after I came here; it was one of the places that I went to early back in the late 1990s, and it's still here, still buzzing, and they still brew their own beer, craft beer—and the food is a fusion of western and Japanese, but amazing place; if you get a chance to go there. Alright everybody, that's all I got for you—I got to get back, I'm going to set up the daimyo packages and get that out tomorrow to our Patreon supporters. Thanks everybody—if you have any questions, leave them in the comments below; we're going to do a Q&A trip planners for Patreon supporters, and maybe we'll share those videos on this channel afterwards—but I really want to prioritize our Patreon supporters because they're helping to make this channel work. On Sunday, our family is going to be going with my wife's dance school—who's going to be playing with us and performing at the Osaka Expo, which is pretty crazy. I'm going to be taking care of Leo, so I'll be sort of off, but I'll be doing live streams still—but I won't be editing any videos, so I'm really trying to hurry up to get as much content on that new main channel, and we'll have much more stuff coming as soon as possible.

23:17 John Daub: I can't ask for better weather than this—this is just absolutely beautiful; the sun is shining, the temperature we're getting upper 70s, low 80s with very little humidity—and this May right now is the best time, right after Golden Week, maybe May 8th until June—the best time; the flowers are out, the cherry blossoms are done, the tourists kind of go away, prices get better, Japanese are working so they don't have as much holiday—it's just a nice time here to be in Japan right now. And if you're picking your trip, you're thinking of the best time—it's now and maybe September when the humidity starts to break, the third week of September. You hear the trains going above—it's so awesome. Alright guys, take care—thanks, see you on the next live stream. Matane (see you later). Oh and we're about four new postcard club members away from hitting our goal—where I'll take the Shinkansen and deliver the postcards to Osaka to get that stamp; we need about four or five more postcard club members. Next month's postcard is the Osaka Expo, which is going to be pretty cool. Alright guys, matane.