In one of the standard books on drinking sake in Tokyo, there’s an establishment called ‘Sake no Ana’. I like to translate that as ‘The Liquor Hole’, although I’m sure there’s a more delicate way of putting it. If I had to assign a name to Kawashima, it would be ‘The Liquor Cave’. It’s a […]
Author: Jon
- Other treats
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Ricolo, Tokyo
Seafood teppanyaki? Well, when you cross out the places on the 12th floor that are over $30 for lunch, and disregard the places with lines, you’re left with this option (aside: an hour for Maisen? I wouldn’t piss on their tonkatsu if it was on fire!). And it was pretty good! For some reason I […]
Bengal, Akihabara
Bengal is a place I’ve seen many, many times but never tried. Now that I’ve tried it, I’m happy to say “I wasn’t missing anything, and neither are you!” As with some other places I’ve been with recently, I’m prepared to think I’m missing the point – they’ve been doing this since roughly 1970, so someone […]
Hana Modern, Kagurazaka (華もだん)
Japanese people, damn your language. I was moping around the counter at this place, thinking how crappy it was that I couldn’t understand what ‘modan’ meant. Written in hiragana, I assumed it was a regional word or something. Then I noticed it was written ‘modern’ on their business card, and I said “damn your language”. […]
Tamanegiya, Kagurazaka (たまねぎや)
Friday night…errr, Wednesday night before the Thursday holiday…saw me walking around Kagurazaka, freezing my nuggets off, in search of sake. It’s been 2 weeks since I last brought you any sake exploration (the last was Ikebukuro’s Umibatake, which I still remember fondly) – a short low-consumption period to recharge. Feeling better now, thank you. Having […]
- Other treats
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Junoesque Bagel Cafe, Tokyo
Only recently I was reminded that Junoesque’s bagels are pretty edible (which is itself, I think, a reminder that my standards regarding bagels have slipped irredeemably), and after having a gander at some of the other places I hadn’t been in Tokyo Station, I decided to have a sandwich here (the sushi place chief among […]
- Italian
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Bosso, Kanda
Well, here’s a funny linguistic point to liven up an otherwise very normal lunch. Bosso sounds Italian (and auto-translates to ‘boxwood’, but never trust an auto-translator, I say) but in this case has the pleasing double meaning of implying 房総, the old name for Chiba, where the restaurant sources its products. (Yes, I had lunch […]
La Chasse, Roppongi
If I were the type of guy who gave his posts descriptive titles that made it harder to search for them later, I’d be calling this one “At the Sign of the Skull”. I don’t know how they got permission for this, but La Chasse has taken a perfectly normal building deep in Roppongi-3 (the […]
- bistro
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Figaro, Aoyama
Bit of a dissapointment here – looking for a cafe to kill some time between lunch, shopping and dinner, this seemed like the obvious choice in Aoyama (since, for example, the Henri Le Roux cafe was packed to the rafters, and has nothing to do with him beyond the name anyway). For those few readers […]
- Other treats
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Chiyomatsu ramen, Shibuya (千代松)
Shinjuku is a noodle town. A spicy ramen noodle town. Geez, that worked for me on so many levels. Whaddya think, Sam? So every time I go to Shibuya, I got lost, OK? Yes, it’s a sign that I’m getting old (and this “Ooh, it’s your year” business isn’t helping). On this particular jaunt I […]