Tokyo Rose: The Go-to South East Asian Store

    Growing up as a Filipino immigrant in the Middle East, my world and lifestyle in Qatar were dominated by Filipino and other Asian foods. While it is true that Arabian culture also has a sizeable presence in the region, as you would expect, the sheer amount of Southeast Asian and West Asian expats within the Middle East made it so that their foods were plentiful there. In addition, my parents were always there to cook up some delicious Filipino food; we ate it almost every single day in fact. Foods like adobo and sinigang helped me develop my own taste buds and appreciate my own culture’s own cuisine. Those experiences in the twelve or so years in the Middle East helped me create a sense of nostalgia and homesickness.

    Which made it all the more jarring and almost disruptive to my psyche when I moved all the way to Japan last October. Suddenly my parent’s and grandmother’s home-cooking that I’ve grown to adore just vanished. Entire streets lined up with Filipino, Indian, and Pakistani and the like were gone as well, being replaced with many a Japanese restaurant and the occasional foreign restaurant. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Japanese food as well. Who doesn’t? But as the days and weeks passed, I’ve grown slightly weary of the usual convenience store food (they were still delicious though!). My homesickness for the Filipino foods I loved grew. I missed it so much.

    Conditions finally changed for the better though, when I stumbled across a small store called Tokyo Rose, tucked in within the narrow roads of Isezaki-cho. This restaurant and store arcade located in front of Kannai station is packed to the brim with not only Japanese stores and restaurants, but many foreign ones as well. Tokyo Rose is no exception; it is a grocery store selling all kinds of South-east Asian foodstuffs, ranging from Indian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, and most importantly for me, Filipino foods. From fresh fruits and vegetables, cosmetics, snacks, desserts, frozen foods, and even certain fast foods being sold, looking at them made me smile so much.

    For any Yokohama resident who is looking to try a taste of Southeast Asia, to the homesick foreigners who just want to relive their favorite foods once more, I highly recommend Tokyo Rose and even the whole of Isezaki-cho. You’ll never know what you’ll find!

    Tokyo Rose, as stated above, is located within Isezaki-cho. From the entrance, which is in front of JR Kannai Station (or go straight from Kannai Blue Line Subway station gates and climb up the stairs beside the public piano). Continue walking until you see the Book-Off, where you go right and take a left. Tokyo Rose is located beside a liquor store.

    Disclaimer: I am working with the Tokyo Rose manager in helping set up a website as part of my Yokohama Creative City Studies Program, of the Yokohama National University.