Choosing fast and cheap over high-end chic in Yokohama

Chukagai, Yokohama's Chinatown. Photo by Ko Sasaki for the New York Times

'Follow the salarymen'

As with other Chinatowns, though, if you wend your way from the main avenues, you'll find great little alleys to explore; here, they are lined with street stalls selling coconut-dusted mochi balls for 100 yen, 300-yen Kirin beer and multidish meal deals catering to corporate types heading home. ("Follow the salarymen" was becoming a useful rule of thumb, I found.) I even spotted one stand selling bowls of shark fin soup for 200 yen, though the rock-bottom price was reason enough to be deeply skeptical of the provenance of its normally pricey (and controversial) main ingredient.

Arrive around lunchtime or at 5 pm, and Chukagai is especially alive with pedestrians and entertainment. For 1,000 yen, there are stands where elderly women will read your palm and tell your fortune. I opted to spend my yen allotment on a few small and charming gifts, of which there are many inexpensive choices: a panda-face steamed bun, a pretty candy tin printed with a picture of Mount Fuji, a fish-patterned pair of socks - each for 500 yen or less.

From Chinatown, you can catch a five-minute cab ride to Honmoku Dori, an affordable shopping street on the other side of Motomachi that's frequented by local residents. A B-grade gourmet enthusiast could go wild with Honmoku's density of restaurants, which include homestyle tempura and yakitori joints and Chinese and Italian cuisine. I ate delicious sashimi from Inase, a tiny sushi bar with bento lunch box specials for as little as 400 yen.

The area is also chockablock with little stores selling senbei (rice crackers), tea and red bean mochi sweets; I bought a gift bag of Shizuoka green tea for 500 yen. And there are plenty of bakeries, a special pride of the Japanese. Shirasu, baby sardines, are a regional specialty of nearby Kamakura, a seaside town a half-hour southwest of Yokohama; I tried the delicacy on a small pizza pastry, with wasabi, scallions and cheese (280 yen). It had a pleasing marine brininess and a slightly crunchy texture.