The Pineapple Room, Ala Moana Center
Ala Moana Center is not all that far from Waikiki. We took the trolley over, and the first thing we did was eat, at Alan Wong’s The Pineapple Room. It is a place serving casual Hawaiian food. I had heard…
Ala Moana Center is not all that far from Waikiki. We took the trolley over, and the first thing we did was eat, at Alan Wong’s The Pineapple Room. It is a place serving casual Hawaiian food. I had heard…
After an eight-hour flight, I arrived in Hawaii. By the time I got out of the airport it was around 11 o’clock, Hawaii time. The view at the airport The weather is just gorgeous. The stretch between l…
Somehow I ended up going to Hawaii. I was flying out of Narita Airport on a night flight, which meant dinner had to happen at Narita. To be honest, Narita Airport is pretty dated and there really are not any r…
Fujimaru’s ramen is seriously addictive; once you have had it and liked it, you end up going back again and again. A few of my Japanese friends are addicts, so off we went. Fujimaru ramen This is the …
Dinner had been a bit skimpy, so I stopped by a tanmen shop in Kinshicho for a late-night bowl on the way home. Tanmen is a light shio ramen loaded with vegetables. The front entrance It was late at night, …
Having come all the way to Gunma, there was no way I was skipping the hot springs. There is Ikaho Onsen near the Mizusawa udon place, but I went to Kusatsu Onsen, the most famous one in Gunma. There were so ma…
As some of you probably know, the manga Initial D is set on Mt. Haruna in Gunma. In the manga it appears under the name Mt. Akina. It is such a famous spot that I had always wanted to visit at least once, and …
Japan’s three great udon are Sanuki, Inaniwa and Mizusawa udon. I have been to Kagawa, the home of Sanuki udon, and Inaniwa udon has a famous shop in Ginza and, being dried noodles, tastes much the same …
Tonchinkan is a tonkatsu and shabu-shabu chain that uses Kagoshima pork. Kagoshima pork is so good to begin with that it tastes great even when it is cooked without much care, and it reminds me a bit of Jeju b…
There is one highly rated unagi specialist in Asakusa. Unagi prices have gone up lately, so I had been hesitating, but I went with the feeling that if not now, when would I ever get to try it. The front entra…
Sharin, the tsukemen shop attached to Ueno Station, is a place I had passed by and noticed a few times before, but it was only recently that I found out it is a sister shop of Rokurinsha. Once I knew that, I c…
Deep in the mountains of Yamanashi, a prefecture relatively close to Tokyo, sits the Hakushu Distillery. It takes about four hours by train, and after years of telling myself I should go someday, I finally mad…