The happy couple. Big Bird and I are discussing wedding venues as our Thursday-romantic-lunch series continues, and La Rochelle bills its chapel as Tokyo’s Most Romantic. Not many restaurants have chapels at all, of course, so it’s awfully convenient. Also convenient is being expected, and they were nice enough to thank us for our coming. […]
Month: July 2011
- izakaya
- ...
Ta, Meguro (和創作 太)
Yooooooshta. It’s official. I have now been to all of the good sake places in Tokyo. Think you know another? Nope. Not good. This is the last one. Boo-yah! Good, I’m glad we could all agree on that. Back to work. Chalk up another one, Jimmy, another of Tokyo’s best i-zaka-ya’s gone under the bridge. […]
Hakata Ramen Center, Iidabashi (博多ラーメンセンター)
Meeting everyone’s favorite ‘Cock is a good opportunity to explore rare neighborhoods. I mean, Kudanshita is rare for me, and he doesn’t go out to lunch. For some reason Ikaruga wasn’t doing maze-soba today, and I decided to boycott out of protest. As if all the other people in line cared. And on a back […]
Taniyan ramen, Monzennakacho (深川谷やんラーメン本店)
This is on the outskirts of Monnaka, where Kasaibashi Dori bends down to meet Eitai Dori and it’s hard to cross the street if you’re walking to work – which I was, for several years. And the grease and stains on the yellow awning here kept calling me. Plenty of evenings I’d wobble by on […]
- Other treats
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Tetsu ramen, Shinagawa (つけめん 煮干そば TETSU 品川店)
Yeah, it was a pretty long night. After two izakayas, I just couldn’t resist the Shinagawa ramen street on the way back to the station. At least I was able to split a bowl with someone, which in theory helped with the calorie count. In practice, don’t be silly. Tetsu is a really popular place. […]
- izakaya
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Hyotan, Shinagawa (和風居酒屋 ひょうたん 品川店)
We pretty much struck out at the first place, not even completing our plan to wait there until our friends arrived but at least adding an amusing one to the file of losers. The next most likely-looking establishment was Hyotan, a few hundred meters down the road, and it turned out well. Certainly it had […]
- izakaya
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Kirakutei, Shinagawa (きらく亭)
After a leisurely recidivist lunch at l’Effervescence we gradually worked all the way down to Shinagawa to meet the Todds…who were late because their kitchen went up in flames. Definitely a worthwhile excuse. Kirakutei was the most obviously ‘sake’ of the izakayas along the north Shinagawa shopping street (a piece of the old Tokaido, in […]
- beer
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Edamura Liquors, Tsukishima (越後屋 枝村酒店)
Ahhh, the depths of summer, when lonely single men’s fancy’s turn’s to thought’s of Miss July! We stood right next to this calendar, and with the locals studiously ignoring us, had plenty of time to consider what day it was. Miss July may have been the most attractive thing about Edamura, Which is a classic-but-messier […]
- izakaya
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Kanemasu, Kachidoki (かねます)
There’s nothing like an expensive and deeply disappointing French lunch to put you in the mood for an expensive and pretty gratifying…standing izakaya?! Yes, this is the place Big Bird and I failed to enter previously because we arrived on a random closure day (“We will humbly take and honorable holiday on this day.”) Fortunately […]
Aile Blanche, Azabu Juban (エルブランシュ)
Juban, damn your branded hide. The last time I was this disappointed in a well-hyped restaurant was at Piatto Suzuki, just around the corner from Aile Blanche. In this case I at least had Tabelog on my side, saying AB is 25th best out of Tokyo’s 1700 French restaurants, but for once even the rating […]