Aila is a French Colonial restaurant. Or so they say. You say ‘French Colonial’, I think ‘Le Colonial’, and I like that atmosphere. (Of course, if you say ‘black’, I say ‘white’, and if you say ‘bark’, I say ‘bite’.) The exterior here is very much ‘converted house’, with ivy and discrete lighting (or ‘le lighting […]
French
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Bistro Ishikawatei, Nihonbashi (ビストロ石川亭)
As usual, I hope you’ll forgive me for double-posting on this, but since Ishikawa-tei opened this branch in the Muromachi Coredo, I figured I might as well try it. My gushing review of the original is here. I feel a little less gushy now, but the fact remains that it’s good, solid cooking and extraordinary […]
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 […]
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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 […]
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Douze Gout, Kyoto
Have you had this happen? You go somewhere a bit old-fashioned and traditional, like Kyoto, and spend a long weekend being old-fashioned and eating traditional food. By the end of it, you feel like you could murder a burger. It leads you to think things like “European food for lunch.” Silly me, I was a […]
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Bistro Abats, Hongo
Look, I know everyone’s upset about this whole nucular meltdown thing, but last Thursday everything was peachy. So peachy, in fact, that I wandered up to Hongo to try a place that appealed on previous research but closed too early for me to sample. It’s peeking out from behind the tropical foliage, down at the […]
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Aux Delices de Hongo, Hongo
On a little street in Paris…no, this is the alley leading from the oddly-placed Hongo station to the street. Aux Delices is a multi-level affair with a semi-casual bistro down and a more formal restaurant up. It would be neat to see what the top floor does, because the price ranges of lunch options overlap […]
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La Ripaille, New York
Going to New York, I wanted to eat in all the little New American places I always read about. I failed pretty comprehensively in that. In the case of La Rippaile, I was at least please to confirm that that type of French bistro that so irritates me in Tokyo, the one where the chef […]
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Caudalie, Yushima
If they want to convert the bottom floor of their modern, rebuilt Yushima house into a 1-room French restaurant with good style and serve decent food at reasonable prices, more power to ’em. That’s what I say. I saw Caudalie a year or more back while on a bike cruise around Yanesen; it’s taken this […]
French Dining, Kagurazaka
It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a whole community of Tokyo-based friends and casual acquaintances to provide a steady supply of places for me to try for lunch… Today’s pick comes as possibly the last installment in the recent Kagurazaka bistro series (there are only a few candidates left, and they’re […]