This is really just me being excited about being back in the Garden State, where fresh fruit and vegetables really ARE highly abundant all summer long. Lots of people seem to be doing the CSA thing this year (Community Supported Agriculture; this puts me in mind of Japan, where every bit of agriculture is heavily […]
Riverwinds, Deptford
This trip was funny because I saw a number of people that I haven’t seen for years. And I mean 11, 12 and 19 years, at least for the three I’m thinking of. There were others that I’m not sure about, timing-wise. The most recent of those was Swayhoover, whose (maiden) name is quite entertaining […]
Sweet Lula’s, Pitman
Well, here we are back in Pitman. As some of you know, the central purpose of this trip was a CD release party wherein we played most of the CD that we had been recording for the last year or so (me via files sent from Tokyo). I mean, I’d love to see my family […]
Bernachon, Monzennakacho
I know what you’re thinking, or at least I know what I’d be thinking if I was in your shoes. Your empty, empty shoes, gradually coming to the crushing realization that this picture is two bars of Bernachon chocolate and a bag of Jacques Genin caramels, and they’re sitting on my dining table, not yours. […]
- izakaya
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Hayashiya, Asagaya (食愉旬感 HAYASHIYA)
Northside Asagaya is a hip, bohemian enclave of over 100 fun little bars and restaurants…that were all closed on the holiday. But no reason we couldn’t walk around and see things, like this hip, bohemian house. They left the window open. I think that makes it fair game, and even fairer with a flash. Don’t […]
- izakaya
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Kaburaya, Asagaya (かぶら屋)
Kaburaya is a medium-sized chain of cheerful and very, very cheap izakayas centered on Ikebukuro and south on the Shinjuku axis. They have a few farther-out branches like this one that Peacock and I stopped in to after being rejected by some other places. God blesses the meek and the early openers – these guys […]
- Other treats
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Izuei, Ueno (鰻割烹 伊豆栄 本店)
Everyone’s got their yearly trip home, be it to Japan or America (and I’m reliably informed that some people hail from other colonies as well, like France). Today I met Blowin’ and his family, on their annual Japan pilgrimage, for lunch and a stroll around Ueno. Being the big food blogger and all, everyone wanted […]
- Other treats
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Boissier, Yaesu
Boissier, the Daimaru Tokyo cafe-style outlet of a French patissier, is a place that I noticed in passing once when taking the elevator up to the Daimaru restaurant floor. You wouldn’t think it, but there are cafes on most of the intermediate floors too. And they (this one at least) are enormous. I was expecting […]
- bar
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Deep Tin, Kachidoki
Cubic neighborhood bar with a dash of style, good selection of whisky and rum, Guiness and Heartland on tap, Chimay in bottles, interesting conversation, Big Bird. If you lived in one of the tremendous high-rise buildings near here, what else could you ask for? ‘Not a lot’ would be the appropriate answer, I think. In […]
- izakaya
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Shun, Kachidoki (いざか屋 旬)
Following the unfortunatosity that was Tsuruya, Big Bird and I ventured over to his ‘home quadrant’ of Kachidoki, where there’s one street with a few decent-looking places. The soba looks pretty good, and so did this place. It turned out OK. Any place with the audacity to call themselves ‘Season’ must have a bit of […]