Places We Go : A Quick Trip to Japan

One of the best parts of living in the Bay Area is that you can "visit" a foreign city in a quick afternoon. Now Japan is even nearer than the wonderful Japantown in San Francisco. A 15-minute drive from home took me to Tokyo, in Emeryville, CA. I found long lines on a March Sunday afternoon at the new Tokyo Central market.

Bay Street Emeryville is a large, open-air, mixed-use shopping center and lifestyle mall. A new addition is Tokyo Central, a 44,000 sq ft grocery store which opened in January. Let's take a look around.

Tamaki Gold Rice looked like a good buy.

Andersen Bakery is a Bay Area institution, combining their Japanese-European heritage. Their renowned Japanese milk bread is used in Japanese-style sandwhiches and as a base for desserts.

The $11.99 per pound buffet was almost sold out but includes tofu, black and green seaweeds.

Delicious looking "fast" food to warm up at home.

Behind the windows, onigiri is handmade every 90 minutes. "Onigiri are popular Japanese rice balls, often triangular, round, or cylindrical, made from steamed white rice, seasoned with salt, and frequently wrapped in nori seaweed. Originating from ancient Japan as portable food, they are filled with ingredients like salmon, tuna mayo, or pickled plum," Google.

I ate a lobster & shrimp onigiri. It was still warm but the seafood was very bland.

Charbroiled meats on skewers looked delish.

A few aisles of Japanese beauty supplies.

I'm intrigued with face masks. After a search on my phone, I bought the red one on the right - "The Stem Cell. facial treatment mask." All the packaging is in Japanese, but directions and ingredients are online. It's meant for daily use for fine lines. After just one treatment, I think I noticed a difference! 30 facial masks = $9.99.

I can't tell you how hard it is to get a plain white toothbrush. I bought three.

Crane games cost 1 token ($1.00). These and child-size shopping carts are fun for kids. I met a 5-year old girl who was taking her shopping very seriously. She kept filling up cart and her mom kept putting those items back on the shelves.

Wakasakura, Hand Roll Factory is next door. I snapped this before they opened. The restaurant is part of Tokyo Express.

All the outdoor tables were filled - people eating their purchases from the buffet inside Tokyo Central. I was headed to Uniqlo next.

Headquartered in Tokyo, you may know the Uniqlo brand - 78 stores in 9 US states.

I loved checking out - I bought a grey t-shirt - see it in the bottom of the bin? The price tags are automatically read - no matter how many clothes you dump in the bin - easy peasy!

yelp photo by abi h, 2.1.2026

PS - Looks like the opening weekend of Tokyo Central was a mad house! There's also a location in Cupertino plus a few in Southern CA. At the Emeryville location, free parking is on the 2nd floor.