Tanga Market Kokura

Japanese City Guides: Tanga Market, Kokura, Kitakyushu 旦過市場

• History
• Seafood
• Nukamisodaki
• Restaurants
• Daigakudo
• Access

Bustling, colorful, and with a wide range of aromas, Tanga Market is a unique shopping experience

Tanga Ichiba, offers a rare opportunity to visit a traditional Japanese market and experience the sounds, sights, smells, and tastes of a Japan that is fast disappearing.

Other than the world famous Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo (now moved to Toyosu Market in Toyosu), markets are not a destination high on the list of places to go for most tourists when  visiting Japan.

There are still a few markets around in Japan, but most have been turned into Shopping Streets. Shotengai are the covered shopping streets common throughout Japan.

In the thriving cities they are nowadays more aakeido (アーケイド）, from the English word arcade. Increasingly populated with national and global chains they tend to lack any distinctive features.

In smaller, provincial towns, suffering rapid depopulation, the shopping streets are like ghost towns, with most storefronts shuttered and local cats outnumbering the humans.

Tanga Ichiba is like neither of these two extremes, being both bustling with locals, and with no Starbucks or major chain stores in sight, and has a very retro feel of the postwar Showa era.

One of several butchers in Tanga Market
Fresh fish in all shapes and sizes are available from the many fishmongers in Tanga Market

History

Tanga Market runs alongside a tributary of the Murasaki River, and its origin is believed to be when boats moored here and sold goods directly from the boats about 100 years ago.

Then as now fresh vegetables and fruit were sold to local people. If you are wanting to pick up some fresh fruit, it's a great place to find cheap and fresh produce not wrapped in layers and layers of plastic like most supermarkets nowadays.

There are several butchers in the market where you can buy meats that are hard to find in most supermarket meat departments, but by far the product most available in the market is seafood.

Tucked away in one of the narrow lanes of Tanga Market you will find tiny coffee shops, bars, & eateries

Seafood

There are about 20 stalls and shops offering a wide variety of fresh fish in all shapes and sizes, including a couple that specialize in whale meat. The whaling fleet that conducts "research" in the waters of the Antarctic is based in nearby Shimonoseki. A dazzling array of shellfish is also on offer as well as mentaiko, a spicy roe, and fugu, the poisonous blowfish.

If you want to pick up some cooked or prepared food then once again you have plenty of delicious options. Some stalls sell fresh, hand-made bento (Japanese box lunch), at others you can pick up karage (Japanese style fried chicken), kamaboko ( a type of paste or sausage made from various types of fish), egg-rolls, kurokke (croquettes with various fillings), or even ice-cream made from goats milk, but by far the most well known local specialty is nukamisodaki.

Tanga Market, Kokura, Kitakyushu

Nukamisodaki

With a distinctive aroma and apparently quite delicious, nukamisodaki is fish, usually sardine, pilchard, or mackerel, pickled in fermented rice bran and miso. It is a Kitakyushu delicacy and even has its own mascot, Nukamura-kun, who travels the country promoting it.

Restaurants

Finally, there are numerous eateries in the market, most offering extremely good value meals from fresh ingredients, and most so small as to fit the description "hole in the wall". Obviously there are seafood restaurants, a couple of noodle places, sushi, even a Jingusikan joint ( barbecued mutton, named after Genghis Khan), but the signature eatery in Tanga Market is Daigakudo.

Nukamisodaki, various types of fish pickled in rice bran and miso is a Kitakyushu specialty and is sold widely at Tanga Market

Daigakudo

With an interior that reflects the retro Show-era of the rest of the market, Daigakudo is operated by students and offers a variety of cheap meals including soup for 100 yen, but the most famous is the donburi where you buy a simple bowl of rice, starting at 100 yen, and then take it out of the restaurant and wander the market buying different items to put on top.

The market traders are only too willing to help you with suggestions, and it makes for a unique dining experience. While now being discovered by increasing numbers of tourists, Tanga Market is still very much for local people and not at all touristy or pricey.

Activity at the market starts fairly early and some stalls are open for people to pick up their lunch on the way to work, and some places stay open till quite late, but the busiest times are from 10 am to 5 pm.

Tanga Market, Kokura, Kyushu

Access - Getting to Tanga Market

The northern entrance to the market is directly across the street from the southern end of the Uomachi Gintengai, possibly the first covered shopping street in Japan built in 1952. It starts not far from JR Kokura Station and runs 400 meters south. The southern end of Tanga Market is adjacent to Tanga Station on the Kitakyushu Monorail.

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