Le Coeur Bakery Cafe, Ryogoku
Unless you are into art, most people probably have no idea who Hokusai is, but in Korean terms he is a nationally famous genre painter, like Kim Hong-do or Shin Yun-bok. His vivid sense of colour later influen…
Unless you are into art, most people probably have no idea who Hokusai is, but in Korean terms he is a nationally famous genre painter, like Kim Hong-do or Shin Yun-bok. His vivid sense of colour later influen…
Kamiya Bar, an Asakusa landmark, has a long history and is always packed with tourists. It is a place people love, but not exactly a great restaurant, so I never had a reason to go.. until somehow I ended up t…
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…
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…
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…
The cherry blossoms came out incredibly early this year. So early it made me think, huh, there are years like this. Normally they do not hit full bloom until April, but this year they started opening in mid-Ma…
I heard there was a machine-made juwari (100% buckwheat) soba shop in Akihabara, so I went one weekend. The front entrance It is tucked away in a bit of a corner. If you are going out of your way, it is a f…
There is a nice little lunch spot near the office, so I drop in for lunch pretty often. It is a place called Arie, tucked away in a back alley with a cafe-like atmosphere. It is a neighborhood eatery, so there…
There are not many soba shops in Tokyo that open on Mondays. A friend was visiting from Korea and we thought about having soba; these days Azumabashi Yabu Soba would be my top recommendation, but where we ende…
I headed out to Kichijoji over the weekend. It is far from home, but every now and then I end up with a reason to go. The first stop was Satou, famous for its menchikatsu. The front of Satou The second floo…
Over the New Year holidays I had a chance to go to the Gotemba Premium Outlets. While wondering where to have lunch, I went with the safe bet, Uogashi Sushi. It is a popular place – or rather, there are …