Grocery Shopping at Mitsukoshi Department Store

After shoe shopping at Mitsukoshi in Ikebukuro the other day, it dawned on me that I could do my grocery shopping there. That statement might take a bit of explaining. Where to begin.

My favorite Mitsukoshi is the flagstaff store in Nihonbashi (Tokyo). Until a year ago I lived reasonably nearby in Nippori, and I would stop at Nihonbashi on the way home for an Obento (box lunch) for dinner when I was tired of convenience store food or wanted to give myself a reward for a job well done. Being a bit of an expert in box lunches and instant meals (it took me four or five years to write my dissertation while working full-time and I had no time to make food like a normal person), my favorite Obento is from the department store in Shibuya, the next best is Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi, and the third is Tokyo station Daimaru. Just in case you’re in the need.

The rare times I actually went grocery shopping (near the end of my dissertation), I would stop at the Matsuzakaya department store close by in Ueno. When I first moved to Nippori, and for many years after, there was no grocery store nearby and it made perfect sense to do my grocery shopping at the department store. Grocery shopping at a department store may seem odd to some, but at least one department store in NYC sells groceries in the basement, I think probably Bloomingdale’s but I can’t remember, and the model is likely Harrods in England. In any case, Japanese department stores usually have two basement levels for food shopping, the first level for pricey gift items and gourmet foods, and the lower level for regular (but pricey) groceries.

Why, now that I live in Mejiro and have two grocery stores nearby, would I go to the Mitsukoshi department store, all the way one train stop away in Ikebukuro no less, and more expensive to boot, you may well ask. I hate grocery stores. I was traumatized as a kid with the long expeditions Mom would make to the grocery store and the excruciating boring time I would have to suffer for hours (no, I am NOT exaggerating!) while she talked to the other housewives. (This is also why I never wanted to be a housewife.) I hate thinking about what to make for dinner, I hate doing the shopping for it, I am not really thrilled about the making of it, and as for eating I would rather go out and see my friends at my yakitoriya-san.



I have tried various methods to try to convince myself to make dinner like a normal human being. One of which is to buy beautiful Japanese dishes for which I have to make dinner in order to use. (It is actually kind of fun to wash them). The best approach I have found so far, is to invite people over to my house. Then it is fun to think about what to make and what people might enjoy eating. Plus, my friends usually bribe me with beer to get me to cook for them. But it has been a long time since my friends have lived close enough to invite them over to dinner. (This is why people in Japan go out drinking together instead of having parties at home, everyone lives too far apart.) Nevertheless, I have decided that now that dissertation is done (and has been for a couple of years) I really must make an effort to live like a normal person. You have no idea, unless you actually know me personally, how difficult and unlikely this turning over of a new leaf is. Anyhow, my new plan is to avoid the grocery store phobia all together by shopping at Mitsukoshi.

So far it has been working. I pretend I am a wealthy young lady, who of course shops for pricey upscale gourmet items, rather than, horrors, at the local grocery. This pretend is kind of fun and I either go straight from work or dress up a bit for it on the weekend. It makes a bit of a fun outing out of the whole ordeal. And of course the food is pretty good too. Unfortunately, I usually forget to buy something or they don’t sell something a humble person like myself actually wants, so I end up stopping at the grocery store on the way home afterwards anyhow. One time it was for a single serving of tofu and another for the brand of Yuzu soy-sauce I like. Of course, if I was home during the day, I could just buy some tofu from the street vender. I am obviously in an upscale neighborhood of non-working housewives (not that housewifery isn’t hard work in itself), or the venders would come around at night.

It would also be fun to go to the local old-fashioned street market, where neighborhood women go shopping daily with their beautiful woven baskets, but alas, such a market is not local to me, and I would have to buy a bike to get there. I will walk for miles, but I hate biking!

Nowadays in Japan it is the thing to bring your own bag to the grocery store not to waste plastic bags for ecology reasons. Since I recycle my plastic bags as garbage bags, it is actually more cost affective for me to use the plastic grocery store bag, even if it costs five yen, than to buy garbage bags. Plus, the garbage truck comes twice a week for burnable waste and I don’t need a huge garbage bag anyway (especially since I don’t cook, oops). Nevertheless, I have been thinking of buying myself a Mitsukoshi “My Bag” anyway, so I can continue to style myself as the wealthy young lady.



Talk about over-packaging, which I basically love, Mitsukoshi supplies you with more plastic bags and wrappings than even I can use. In brand conscious Japan, I think Vuitton and such are really missing out on a merchandising opportunity. To use a ￥10,000-plus bag to go grocery shopping and save five yen at the register would be the epitome of the Japanese sense of iki (a droll sense of understated extravagance). A Japanese friend of mine once apologized for showing up with her mother’s old raggedy, I think it was Vuitton, book satchel, and I told her it made her look like she grew up in a wealthy family, instead of being a middle-class overspending nitwit. I never buy designer bags, because I don’t want to set a bad example of unnecessary spending for my women students. I do however, you might remember, have a non-waterproof designer down jacket, so I am not completely innocent.

Anyhow, back to the story, the department stores have on their gourmet level, pre-cooked ready to serve gourmet dishes of the best ingredients. So if you choose well, you can more or less get by without really needing to cook at all. I do however cook my own rice, because I am convinced that one day it will be found that reheating foods in plastic containers releases cancer causing chemicals, and it tastes awful anyway. I also really like miso, so I make my own miso-shiru soup (most of the time).

So, the top photo is my bag of Mitsukoshi grocery purchases, notice that every single item is individually wrapped and some then put in extra bags, so they won’t inadvertently leak. The second photo is the contents removed from the bag. Starting from the lower center is a bag of tea leaves (I am fond of tea too), above that broiled fish (broiling fish smells up the apartment), to the left counter-clockwise kinbira kobō (burdock), yuzu hakusai (vinegared Chinese cabbage), nanohana (now in season), miso, and single-serving tofu (the latter from the local grocery store) for the miso-shiru soup. The final photo is how it all looks when served. Notice the pretty dishes. Pretty impressive, don’t you think?