Kimagureya is a popular sandwich shop for the workers at Tsukiji Market. Most of the workers get the sandwiches to go. Often a worker from a stall will come and pick up a big order for him and his colleagues.
The simple menu includes fried items like shrimp, chicken or croquettes, and more standard sandwich fillings like tuna salad, egg salad, or ham and cheese. Each sandwich is about 140 – 200 JPY. The cold sandwiches are on display in the window. Hot sandwiches, like fried chicken, menchi katsu (fried ground meat cutlet), korokke (croquette), or ebi katsu (shrimp cutlets) are kept in warm boxes in the kitchen.
The shop also sells onigiri, rice sandwiches stuffed with salmon, spicy cod roe, pickled umeboshi, and more at 140 JPY each.
The staff do not speak English and the menu is only in Japanese, so if you go, point at one of the cold sandwiches, you can see the fillings. Or, if you want a hot sandwich, pick from the list above and ask for it, slowly. 🙂
The biggest surprise was how the sandwiches are assembled. It is one slice of bread that is stuffed and folded over. I love this. The chicken katsu above is seasoned with julienned cabbage and sauce (think Worcestershire). Kimagure is a Japanese word that means fickle, whimsical, or capricious. Perfect name for these sandwiches. 🙂
Kawasaki-san, the owner of Tsukiji Turret Coffee, put this lovely shop on my radar. He sometimes stops by here before he opens his shop. His favorite is the ebi katsu, deep-fried shrimp cutlet sandwich.
An older couple runs this very local shop. I am worried that once the market moves to Toyosu in November as most of their customers seem to come from the inner market.
The shop sits on a quiet side street. There is a tiny plastic table with two seats in front of the shop. I like to sit here and watch as the workers drive by on the turrets delivering seafood. This is far away from the long lines at the sushi shops, and this is where the local workers eat. A very unique change from the hoards of people standing in line for sushi. I prefer this quiet breakfast.
Kimagureya 気まぐれ屋
Chuo-ku, Tsukiji 6-21-6 中央区築地6-21-6
Food Sake Tokyo 
Seems like the market move will be tough on a lot of vendors.
Yes. Sadly, no one knows what the ramifications will be until that time comes. Glad you could see it before the move!
Love this blog! Next year I would like to visit Tokyo so it will be very helpful.
Arigato. Thank you for the kind words. We do food tours in Tokyo. Please contact us when you know you are coming to Japan. It’s a delicious city, the people are lovely, and so many things to be discovered here.
Great recommendation. I went to Tsukiji yesterday as I wanted to hit up Yachiyo but there was already a massive line out front. I remembered your post about this sandwich so I headed there instead and tried the ebi katsu sandwich, which was on the money (especially for just 200 yen!). I then followed it up with a trip to Turret Coffee and had their iced turret latte – perfect on a hot day!
Just a heads up though, I got a bit lost trying to find 気まぐれ using the English address in the post. I ended up finding it here: http://tinyurl.com/kimaguresandwich
Finally, thanks for your work on this blog, Yukari – I’ve really benefited from your work over the years. 🙂
Konnichiwa, Richard,
Arigato, for your kind words. Glad you got to both try Kimagure and Turret Coffee. Kawasaki-san loves the ebi katsu sandwich, too. I appreciate you taking time to write. Hopefully our paths will cross at one of these shops. And, arigato, for the link to the address.
Mata ne,
Yukari