To duck under the rope noren at Aramasa and slide back its sturdy front door is to take a step into the past. Not a giant, disorienting leap all the way back to feudal Edo or the gilded age of Taisho, but an unthreatening half-pace back to the postwar days of Showa, when salarymen ruled the roost and it took the local train the best part of a day to reach even the more accessible parts of Tohoku.

Aramasa has been in business for over half a century now, and though the present building is just a decade old, the interior has been lovingly reconstructed using many of the original fittings, along with bits and pieces salvaged from earlier buildings now demolished. The effect is simple, cheerful and timeless.

Beams, pillars and wooden panels have a cared-for sheen. An old clock of the kind found at a prewar railway stations keeps guard over the stairs. Rustic artifacts abound: kokeshi dolls, straw snow gear, a handsome tansu chest, a large kite in cheerful folksy colors pinned up by the door.