Omicho Market

Omicho has been Kanazawa's market since the eighteenth century and still functions as one, a dense grid of covered lanes with fishmongers at the centre and vegetables, pickles and knives around the edges. What comes over the counters is specific to this coast: yellowtail thickened by cold water in midwinter, sweet shrimp, small translucent gasu-ebi that rarely travel, and from November the snow crab, sold whole and boiled with a tag on the claw showing where it was landed. Upstairs and along the side lanes, small counters serve it all over rice in a bowl. The city's own tradition of gold leaf turns up here too, scattered over ice cream at the entrance.

What you actually see

• The crab counters - boiled snow crab tagged by port, priced by size, from late autumn to early spring.
• Kaisendon - bowls of raw fish over rice at the upstairs counters, ordered by what came in that morning.
• Gasu-ebi - the local shrimp that spoils too fast to leave the region, eaten raw here.
• The vegetable lanes - Kaga vegetables, lotus root and pickles at the quieter edges of the market.

When to go

Trade starts early and much of the market winds down by mid-afternoon, so come in the morning. Crab season runs from November into spring and is the reason many people visit Kanazawa in winter at all. Some shops close on Wednesdays and Sundays. Lunch queues at the popular bowl counters form well before noon.

Honest expectations

The seafood bowls have become expensive, and the difference between a market lunch and a restaurant one has narrowed to almost nothing. Queues at the two or three well-known counters can run to an hour while identical bowls are served a lane away. Crab prices shock first-time buyers. By four in the afternoon much of the market is already shuttered.

Nearby

Kenrokuen garden and the Higashi Chaya teahouse district are both about 15 minutes away on foot.