Tokyo Dining

Japan has a beautiful relationship with fruit. While it tends to be a little expensive (at least to the eyes of foreigners used to supermarkets crammed with the stuff for next to nothing), fruit is revered in status: apples are grown to extraordinary sizes and prized for their taste, mangoes are packaged like prized antiques, and melons over 10,000 JPY are given as extravagant gifts. Another connection that the Japanese have with fruit is that they enjoy picking for pleasure. Whether with groups of friends, families or on bus tours, all year round, Japanese will head to farms dotted around the country and pick fruit together. In early spring, it is the beginning of the strawberry season. This is perhaps the most popular harvest period, particularly for families with children as ‘ichigo’ are just soooo kawaii! Everyone loves strawberries, especially Japan, which currently has the largest production and consumption of dessert strawberries in the world. Luckily there are plenty of strawberry farms around Kanto that you can visit. Most cost in the range of 1,500 JPY per adult and offer tabehoudai – eat as many as you like – for a set period, usually about 30 minutes. Below are just…