Asakusa has a whole cluster of Russian restaurants, and the original among them is a place called Manos. The others all trained here and then branched off. The one with the best reputation these days is Bona F…
Japan is in the middle of a boom of cheap, high-quality restaurants these days. Not just French or Italian places: quite a few sushi shops, Sushi no Midori among them, now have lines you usually wait an hour o…
Work was so busy over the holidays in early May that I never managed to get anywhere far, so I picked a day and decided to go somewhere nearby. I had heard that a premium outlet mall opened at the end of April…
In Iriya, not far from Ueno, there is a Korean-style Chinese restaurant. Given the prices, more than double what you would pay in Korea, there should be no reason to go.. but when you live in Japan, the cravin…
A tonkatsu place that uses SPF pork, about one train stop away from what you could really call Akihabara, has been popular lately. Some of you may hear SPF and think of sunscreen ratings.. but no, it means hea…
With the recession deepening these days, cheap, generous, fast-turnover restaurants like Ore no French and Uokin (and, if I add one more, Sushi no Midori) are booming in Tokyo. The prices are so competitive th…
On a bright weekend I headed to Toshimaen to see Iron Man 3. Not only is there a 3D IMAX theater, there was also a place I wanted to stop by on the way. Parlor Ekoda, a bakery in Ekoda, is one of the top baker…
I went to a great yakitori place in Tokyo with a friend who flew in all the way from New York. After all, anywhere in the world – even in New York, the city of gourmets – it is hard to find yakitor…
At Kameido Tenjin there is an old wagashi shop called Funabashiya. It was founded in the 2nd year of Bunka (1805), so it boasts more than 200 years of history. They sell a unique dessert called kuzumochi, and …
Gatten is an ordinary yakitori chain. I was looking for somewhere to have dinner and wandered in. Otoshi Just cabbage, but a generous portion. Liver Hearty stuff. The prices are decent too. Squid Instea…
Right next to Grill Sakura, the yoshoku place in Asakusa, is Mutsumi, a restaurant that specialises in kamameshi (rice cooked in a small iron pot). This place is fairly well known too, and I ended up going bec…
One weekend I dropped by Échiré in Marunouchi. The line was as long as ever. The entrance The one saving grace was that it was not as bad as before. But the cake I wanted to buy was nowhere to be seen. T.T …