Bishamondo Honpo

Tochio abura-age is not the thin fried tofu pouch sold everywhere in Japan. It is a slab roughly 20 centimetres long and three centimetres thick, fried twice — first at a low temperature to swell it, then hot to set the crust — so that it comes out puffed and structural rather than flat. Tochio, now part of Nagaoka, has made it since the middle of the Edo period, when it was food for pilgrims to the Bishamondo temple, and the town still supports a cluster of specialist fryers for a population that no longer justifies it.

Bishamondo Honpo is one of those shops, run by a family whose head also performs as the local costumed hero at town events. It fries to order, sells versions cured with miso or kimchi, and has a small counter where the standard set is a fresh abura-age with soft tofu.