Pension Pierrot in Karuizawa
I was going back and forth on where to stay in Karuizawa, and by the time I’d made up my mind, all the decent hotels were already booked. That’s peak season for you. So my fallback was a pension, w…
I was going back and forth on where to stay in Karuizawa, and by the time I’d made up my mind, all the decent hotels were already booked. That’s peak season for you. So my fallback was a pension, w…
The first place I visited after arriving in Karuizawa was the Mercian Museum. Those who know Mercian will know it as a brand of inexpensive Japanese wine. The museum is run by Kirin, famous for its beer, and b…
It was a short trip, but I found a gap in the schedule and went back to Echire, the butter pastry shop. It’s been open for quite a while now, yet it’s still popular enough that you have to queue on…
I’ve been keeping up a pattern of fine dining by day and izakaya-hopping by night. This day, too, I’d heard about a delicious izakaya that competes on shellfish dishes alone, so I went to check it …
Sant Pau in Nihonbashi is the Tokyo branch of a restaurant that holds three Michelin stars in Spain. It’s a famous place with two stars in the Tokyo Michelin guide too, and as you’d expect with tho…
Needing to top up on carbs, I headed to Nagi, a ramen shop that’s supposed to be doing pretty well in Shinjuku. There are three Nagi shops in Shinjuku, and the one I went to was the Nishi-Shinjuku branch…
I went back for another try at Mitsumasa, where last time I left without eating properly. This time I wanted to enjoy the real taste of pork skewers. Starting with beer Summer is hot, so all the more reason …
There was a time when I loved Ochanomizu and went there constantly. Back then I mostly ate Western-style food like curry. I only found out fairly recently that there’s a famous udon shop there. It’…
I first heard the name Restaurant Narisawa a long time ago, but I never felt a strong urge to go. It’s not bad value for the price, but if you only tried to hit the must-visit special restaurants (Quinte…
The theme of this Tokyo trip was Spanish food. If you want to eat Spanish food, the right thing is obviously to go to Spain, but with my line of work there is no way I could ever get enough time off to spend t…
Levain used to be famous, but these days there are so many good bakeries that it honestly isn’t a place you need to go out of your way for. I really should be visiting Le Petit Mec, the hottest bakery of…
Plenty of places sell tofu, but only a handful serve tofu that is genuinely delicious. In fact, lots of people go through life without ever knowing that truly delicious tofu exists. On this Tokyo trip, a frien…