For a couple of weeks, I’ve been mentally turning over the idea of a publishable profile of late-night Ginza. I, of course, have barely scratched the area’s surface, but I think that’s true for almost everyone except those who own bars there. With my limited surface-scratching, the two words that keep turning over in my […]
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Brown Jug, Ebisu
Should you be walking back to the station in Ebisu, you may well stumble across all manner of interesting places. And should it be raining, you may well want to stop in one of them. Be careful not to miss the last train, OK? It’s not fun. The Brown Jug is basically a whiskey bar […]
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Upset the Apple Cart, Shinjuku
Shinjuku 3-chome is an odd little block full of bars, serving as something of a slope to allow the declination of standards as one goes from Isetan’s glamorous flagship store east into 2-chome (no offense). This, to me, is what Shinjuku is all about – more adult than Shibuya, where they listen to pop music. […]
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Fireking Cafe, Yoyogi
Arrrrr, the King of Fire. No idea what this has to do with fire and kings, but a comprehensive walk around Yoyogi Uehara has led me to believe that this is the coolest place going. I want to say this is like being in hip parts of Brooklyn, only I’ve never been there. Somehow I […]
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Medusa, Ebisu
‘Sparkly’ was the order of the day, and that means ‘dining bar’ to me. This place practically jumped off the map, being almost new and also right behind Ebisu’s west exit. The atmosphere was all that, and oddly enough, the food was quite good. As with most big dining bars, there are quite a few […]
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Albente Champagne Cafe, Ebisu
Several champagne cafes have opened around Ebisu in recent years (I say this like I know). Now that I have a little more experience of them, I’d say that they’re oriented toward luxury consumers – hardly surprising for champagne. Check out this place – they distinguish themselves by being your champagne-drinking home-away-from-home, and also by being […]
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Sunny Spot, Ikebukuro
Emboldened by success at Rocky Top, I decided to branch out and explore some of Tokyo’s other live country music venues. Sunny Spot is on the west side of Ikebukuro, and turns out to be a smallish, friendly one-room bar in an odd basement that contains at least 3 live-music venues. And a decent sake […]
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Golden Gai, Shinjuku
It’s great to have foreign visitors – the effort to do something fun with them can really take you out of your normal zones. I hardly never go to Shinjuku, but in the course of this one night was able to visit a bunch of the famous sights, ending up with drinks in a randomly-picked […]
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Hub, Shinjuku
“Arrrrr, here be beer, me hearties!” said Captain Jake as we entered Hub. He had been, and continued to be, discombobulated by the lack of western-style drinking establishments in Japan. I include Hub, a chain of English-style pubs, mainly to make this point. It’s nice to have the English and Irish places out there so you […]
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Blue Drag, Takadanobaba
Takadanobaba, as we previously learned, is a funky sort of student-low end town, with tons of ramen and other down-market specialties. On the other hand, it also features several live music venues, and I went to one of them on Saturday. It’s well worth checking out if you’re at all into the style of music […]