Zen is really one of the best sake bars I’ve been to. Since I posted a long and loving review of my initial visit there, here’s a capsule view of the two consecutive nights we went during this trip. Which means I didn’t drink everything here, sadly. Highlights from my perspective were: Furosen. Can’t get enough […]
bar
Orihara Shoten, Monzen Nakacho (折原商店)
The ‘renewal’ of stores in Monnaka continues. You’d swear this was economic vitality, but I still insist it’s the opposite – economic vitality means existing stores stay in business. The number of new shops opening in the last year is more than the sum of the preceding 5 years. Orihara Shoten, run by Ikebukuro’s Orihara […]
Towers Beer Bar, Tokyo
How many times have I walked by Towers? A dozen, maybe more. Most people wouldn’t walk from the office to Ginza, but it’s only 20-30 minutes depending on what part of Ginza, and I always do it. Towers is right in the middle, and I thought it looked cool even before my friends mentioned this […]
- bar
- ...
Craftheads, Shibuya
It’s likely that most of you need no introduction to Craftheads. In the limited time that I spent there, a good 50% of the clientele was foreign (which is 50% more than most places I go, or in fact the average place in Japan). You may even have been there. If you do need an […]
- bar
- ...
Bowery Hotel Bar, New York
This picture is super-sized only so you can get a tiny semblance of scanability out of it. In fact, most of the dinner pictures I took in New York are plagued by darkness. The Bowery Hotel has presumably been updated and reopened in the last couple years [note: no research whatsoever] because it’s incredibly dark, […]
- bar
- ...
Bar Children, Jiyugaoka
Pat said it best. Walk around Japan for a while, especially quiet suburbs like the outer reaches of Jiyugaoka, and you’ll see confusing places like this. In the picture it looks like a house, as it must have been just over a year ago before becoming a bar. It wouldn’t be surprising to find the […]
- bar
- ...
Sakura, Shibuya (円山茶家 さくら)
First, a little train-themed digression. What’s funny about this photo? The cloth coat? The sensible shoes? The heavy stockings? No! The $1000 handbag! I’m being generous – they have $2k and $3k versions also, and this could be one of them. I hope I didn’t accidentally and unfairly underestimate this woman’s status. Without meaning to […]
- bar
- ...
All That Jazz, Arakicho (オール・ザット・ジャズ)
You have to admire courage and conviction. If you were a regular salaryman who liked drinking sake, would you get off the treadmill around age 40 to open a little bar in Arakicho with a focus on southern sake and a mild theme of 50’s memorabilia and pinup girls? No, you would not. But if […]
Zero, Monzennakacho
Bike culture may not be for sale, but it is most certainly available for exhibition in the windows of recently-opened bars in middle-aged districts of Tokyo that cater to middle-aged men. This is a questionable strategy; there were some young customers in here that might have been lured in by the hip fixie in the […]
- bar
- ...
, Ikejiri Ohashi
Stop me if you’ve read this one before. Several years ago I saw a post by a foreign visitor that talked about a restaurant he’d visitied and how aMAZing it was. But, he said, the owner’s wife had asked him not to blog about it. Too secret. Too great. So he just posted a picture of […]