Must have been over 2 years ago I saw this place and mentally marked it as something worth trying. I don’t get to KSJ a lot, OK? On this trip, as soon as I saw it I remembered, and more rolling around didn’t produce any other place we wanted to go to as much. The […]
Author: Jon
- izakaya
- ...
Kaeru, Kitasenju (居酒屋 かえる)
‘Puerile’ is the word you’re looking for here. No, in fact, while we were eyeing this spot, the master of the shop was taking out some trash, saw us, and said “Oh, go ahead and park there.” As usual in Japan, flexible enforcement. After stumbling (rolling?) upon an entire kilometer of previously unexplored shotengai, it was an […]
Chigusa Dori, Kitasenju (千草通り、柳原)
In the middle of a positively epic bike ride (7 hours and 3 izakayas) we endured a long stretch riding along the river before cutting off to try to find Kita Senju. Strangely, the street we angled onto turned out to be canopied with cherry trees, which are just coming into bloom. And the neighborhood […]
Cafe Aimee Vibert, Nihonbashi
Hellz bellz, did everyone know about this new building except me? The new Coredo Muromachi tower is open, with three (little) floors of restaurants (more than the original Coredo, I think). Incidentally, I stand by my much maligned theory on the name of these buildings – while the ‘Core of Edo’ theory sounds nice, I […]
- Otemachi
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Komeraku, Otemachi (ひとくち茶漬け 八十八楽 こめらく)
The green-ness here is quite striking, isn’t it? As are the low ceilings. These old-fashioned buildings in central Tokyo were not built with claustrophobics in mind. Or people were smaller back then. My favorite example of that style was the old JA building, which was dark and dirty and half-shuttered as well as claustrophobic. Now […]
- bistro
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Raffiné, Hongo (ラフィネ)
The Hongo explorations continue. I like it up here because it’s so quiet, especially if you cross the intersection going north toward Tokyo U, and even more so if you take the soft left onto this little half-shuttered shopping street. I found it months ago, coming from a different direction, totally lost, and was pretty […]
Lautrec, Nihonbashi (ロートレック)
From somewhere I conceived the idea that this vaguely French-bistro themed restaurant would be vaguely European and perhaps good. The windows are filled with various Francophile trinkets, and even the interior gives you some idea that they’re trying to be Euro. Incidentally, note the almost-open cherry blossoms artfully included in the shot. Perhaps it’s more […]
- Otemachi
- ...
San Mari Tearoom, Otemachi
A laaate lunch put me in mind of these places in the basement of the building across the street that stay open all hours. They’re ‘tea rooms’, or kissa, as you like, and this looked like the most likely contender – at least on the smokey atmosphere dimension. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t smoke […]
Matsukaze ramen, Akihabara (松風)
When I first came to Japan and started at my new company, the most surprising thing was this: no laptop. After almost 10 years in consulting-related jobs, not having a laptop from work was like losing an arm. A not very useful, kinda heavy arm that you had to carry around all the time. It […]
Taishoken, Nihonbashi (大勝軒)
Hey hey, it’s magnolia season. I wasn’t even aware there was a magnolia season until this year; this tree is on the way that I usually walk to the office, and it’s getting into full bloom here in the space between plum and cherry blossom seasons. Nice. Less nice is Taishoken, which I of course […]