Food Fair From Ninja Land

What do ninjas, Ueno and wagyu have in common? They are all related to Iga City of 三重県 Mie Prefecture.

It was a lazy Sunday at Ueno Park in Tokyo (not Iga Ueno) and they were hosting a carnival at their open space along the Mall.

Iga City (伊賀市, Iga-shi) was formed in 2004 with the merger of Ueno City and five surrounding towns and villages. The city is named after the former Iga Province, which covered part of today’s Mie Prefecture. The city has been commonly referred to as Iga Ueno (伊賀上野) to avoid confusion with other places named Ueno, e.g. like where I was today.

What’s Iga 伊賀 famous for? Iga Ueno is most famous for ninja. 伊賀流 or The Iga School of Ninjutsu (art of stealth), based in the former Ueno City, used to be one of Japan’s two leading ninja schools during the feudal era which acted like the private army of the shoguns to perform acts of terror and espionage against their enemies. The other school was Soga 甲賀流 that worked for competing shoguns.

It was a cold and wet Sunday morning and the time I arrived at the park, the storekeepers were sweeping the puddles of water that had accumulated on the floor.

In the old days, Iga beef was eaten by ninja as a preserved food. Matsusaka beef may be the most famous brand, but the taste of Iga beef will wow you just as well. But be careful as you ordered the beef skewers, they may not all be Iga beef.

Perhaps it was still early in the morning (9am), perhaps it was too cold and wet, the stores were steaming with hot food and hawkers ready to serve, but I was the only one buying stuffs to eat.

But the place was crowded as the sun set. It was still cold, but the place had dried up sufficiently to allow fairgoers to eat in relative comfort.

Ayu shioyaki 鮎 塩焼き is often a popular street snack, served at festivals or at little shacks serving hungry hikers on popular trails. Visually, it’s a striking image. The ayu fish are speared on wooden sticks and arranged vertically around a charcoal pit.

While this a snack that signifies the arrival of summer, I never pass up an opportunity to eat ayu. And strangely ayu’s stomach and innards are only clean enough to eat in summer.

Shirako, called milt in English, are the seminal vessels typically harvested from cod, and sometimes from anglerfish, salmon, squid and pufferfish. The harvested sperm sacs are tube-like in shape, usually white or light pink in colour, with the layout and consistency of brains.

A bit morbid if you think of it as a father-son collab, but this is a winter-only hot pot featuring cod, shirako, and other veggies in a miso broth. In Japanese, this hot pot is called tara-chiri-nabe 鱈ちり鍋. The rich creamy shirako, fatty winter cod, and warm miso broth is sure to fill you up with warmth in the chilly winters.

There is no admission fee to enjoy the atmosphere of the event, but bring cash if you plan on making purchases of food, drinks or other items. Ueno Park can be accessed in around two minutes on foot from Ueno Station’s Park Exit. The station is served by various lines, including the Tohoku Shinkansen, the Yamanote Line, and the Tokyo Metro Ginza and Hibiya lines to name just a handful.

About Ueno Park

Ueno Park (上野公園, Ueno Kōen) is a large public park next to Ueno Station in central Tokyo. The park grounds were originally part of Kaneiji Temple, which used to be one of the city’s largest and wealthiest temples and a family temple of the ruling Tokugawa clan during the Edo Period. Kaneiji stood in the northeast of the capital to protect the city from evil, much like Enryakuji Temple in Kyoto.

Today Ueno Park is famous for the many museums found on its grounds, especially the Tokyo National Museum, the National Museum for Western Art, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and the National Museum of Nature and Science. It is also home to Ueno Zoo, Japan’s first zoological garden.

You can check the calendar of events at Ueno Park here.

Visited Nov 2023