Isehiro is an 80-year-old yakitori place in Kyobashi, between Ginza and Tokyo Station. I’d heard a rumour that its lunchtime yakitori-don is the best in Tokyo, so I went to check it out. The sign ItR…
Last holiday I opened a Fritz Haag Riesling 2005, completely unplanned, just to test my new sommelier knife, and it was delicious. Fruity aromas tickling the nose, a refreshing acidity, and little bubbles popp…
It’s a treat to have a famous restaurant near home. A place called Yang, famous from all sorts of magazines and restaurant guidebooks, is just a stone’s throw from where I live. The head chef is fr…
I had a lunch date with an acquaintance in Shirokanedai. Platinum Street in Shirokanedai is lined not only with well-known famous restaurants but with plenty of hidden gems too. (For example, the three-star re…
Rokurinsha is famous right now as the ramen shop with the longest line in Tokyo. It’s tucked away in a corner of a residential neighborhood in Osaki, the kind of place only people in the know go to, and …
Center Gai is pretty much the heart of Shibuya, but honestly there aren’t many places there worth eating at. Probably because the rent is so high. Shibuya itself has a fair number of good restaurants, bu…
A ramen shop I dropped into by chance while passing by. I’d actually meant to go to the place next door, which is the famous one, but it had closed early, probably because it’s so popular. This pla…
I went to Watanabe, a famous ramen shop in Takadanobaba, one of Tokyo’s three big ramen battlegrounds. I was in the area on an errand at a wine shop nearby, and on the way back, while wondering what to e…
There’s a miso ramen shop in Ginza that isn’t widely known yet but has been getting popular lately, so I went to check it out. It’s called Ginza, but administratively it’s actually Kyob…
Lately I’ve been totally hooked on niboshi ramen, the kind made with dried sardines. I heard there was a niboshi ramen specialist not too far from Shinjuku, so I went to check it out. Niboshi ramen, the …
Lately a lot of buildings with fun concepts have gone up around Tokyo Station. Besides the Marunouchi and Shin-Marunouchi Buildings, there’s the Daimaru building, TOKIA, and the buildings along Naka-dori…
Near Shinjuku’s West Exit there’s a little alley lined with skewer joints called Omoide Yokocho. The area has always had a certain vibe, so apart from tourists and older guys, not many people drop …