Information of Shops

Mame Shofuku

Mame Shofuku sells mainly Tanba-kuro (black soya) bean snacks as well as dry delicacies and other snacks. A dining space for customers is available at the back of the store.

• delicacy
• Japanese sweets
• restaurant
• sake, whisky, beer

Kyo Tsukimachian East

This Kyoto sweets and snack shop is nostalgic yet novel. The main product is hand-baked rice crackers. The store has inherited the tools and techniques of hand-baking from a store founded at the end of the Edo period (1603-1867), and makes rice crackers by hand without using any machines. Their mamesenbei (rice crackers with beans in the dough) uses black soybeans, green peas, peanuts, and even pumpkin seeds in addition to the most popular broad beans.

• Japanese sweets

Kyo Tsukimachian West

This shop specializes in an unusual pastry called "Fuku-Daruma Anesu.” "Anesu" is based on the sound of a Portuguese word for baked sweets. It is actually a word that has been used for a long time in Japan, although not many people are familiar with it. The ingredients are flour, sugar, and eggs. The surface is baked to a smooth firmness, and the face of Daruma (a Buddhist saint) and the word "fuku," meaning "good luck," are branded on it. Hence, “Fuku-Daruma Anesu.” The texture is crispy, like a Japanese "bolo" cookie, which also happens to be derived from a Portuguese pastry.

• Japanese sweets

Tsubakiya

“Since we have a shop here at Nishiki Market, we want to demonstrate the advantages of face-to-face sales.” The shopkeeper gives customers a piece of paper with recipes on how to boil beans and other ingredients, and he also teaches how to preserve them. He also has a research-oriented side, learning various other methods of cooking and preparing that are in line with the times. He loves to talk, so you can ask him anything.

• cereals
• Japanese sweets

Kitao

Founded in 1862, this bean specialty shop sells black-soya and azuki beans produced in Tanba, Kyoto. Looking around the store, you will find that it is full of beans. Fresh beans, cooked beans, black soya bean tea, and black soya bean sweets. All products are made by this bean specialty store’s carefully chosen ingredients. There is a café on the second floor.

• restaurant
• legume (esp. edible legumes or beans, such as beans boiled in soy sauce and sugar)
• sugar

Minoyoshi

In a word, Minoyoshi is a cereal store, but that does not describe it wholly. It has beans such as black soya beans and azuki beans meant to be cooked at home. It has confectionery ingredients such as Wasanbon sugar and kanbaiko rice flour that are used in Japanese confectionery shops. It also has dried bracken fern starch and frozen konjac jelly used in kaiseki cuisine for special tea ceremonies. There are also a variety of items that, at first glance, even locals wonder what they are used for.

• cereals
• Japanese sweets

Kyotanba

The demonstration sales in the storefront will make you stop in your tracks. Kyotanba sells mainly roasted chestnuts and other products from Tanba, an area northwest of Kyoto City famous for its agricultural produce, and its signature product, "Yakipon," is made with an improved version of the old-fashioned grain-puffing machine, using only carefully selected chestnuts, and roasted to a fragrant, sweet flavor. It is healthy because it is additive-free, maintaining the natural flavor. The chestnuts can be easily removed from their shells. Please enjoy the full flavor of the natural chestnuts.

• Ingredients & Seasonings
• Japanese sweets

Takecho

Black soybean snacks and dried seafood products fill this shop. The common point is that they are good for health. The shop's recommended dried products in bags include sea bream, anago conger eel, wakame seaweed, seared sardines, and shrimp. The fruit sandwiches, an unexpected addition to this store's merchandise, come in many varieties, such as strawberry, papaya, fig, and grape.

• dried salted fish
• processed fish
• deli
• dry foods
• Japanese sweets

Nomura Tsukudani

Nomura Tsukudani has an ample selection—about 100 kinds!—of tsukudani (food boiled in soy sauce). There are also products sold by weight for home use. Nomura Tsukudani has inherited the tradition of carefully making various products little by little since their early days when they were a delicatessen, which was still rare at the time.

• tsukudani
• deli
• delicacy