I’d like to hit you with a counterintuitive and valuable lesson about picking restaurants in Japan – ‘grill’ doesn’t mean what you think. While Gonnosuke has some neat ambience (murals, surfboards), it is firmly in the ‘grill’ category (I mean, the name really gives it away, right?). That means it’s going to be serving what? […]
Kanda
Okanaga Club, Nihonbashi Bakurocho (岡永倶楽部)
Errrrr…..this statue in Kanda, up near Awajicho (we went to Katsuman and got rattled by a big earthquake in the old building there) depicts the youth of Japan confidently ascending toward the future. Too bad about the salute. Too bad about Okanaga Club too – it has all the makings of a terrific sake-focused, upscale […]
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Beaver, Kanda (ビーバー)
Not too long ago, Big Bird and I walked by this place. I thought it might be unseemly for a big bird to enter a beaver – too obvious, not funny, old plastic food – so we let the sleeping beaver lie. But I wanted to get in there, for irony value if nothing else. […]
Tenpou ramen, Kanda (天宝)
There are some weird things in the back alleys of Kanda; not all of them have proper signs. This one does, and in some ways it would be better not to see it. To put it simply, it’s maid barbeque. To put it a little longer, it seems you can pick which skimpy cartoon costume […]
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Amane soba, Kanda (蕎麦 周)
I’m always going on about Kanda like you should know it, but most people don’t have much experience with it. At least most people in my experience. It’s this kind of neighborhood – 6-7 story buildings that are mainly offices for small companies. I like to think that this is the heart of Edo, updated […]
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Musashino Aburasoba, Kanda (武蔵野油学会)
Ahhh, I just love the name here – “Oil Study Meeting” or if you wanted to be extravagant, “Scientific Society for the Study of Oil”. ‘Musashino’ refers to an area of Tokyo that was formerly famous for beef carpaccio. These guys now occupy the space where Nocchi was in western Inner Kanda (it’s actually on […]
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Kouetsu, Kanda (旬魚 口悦)
Spring is in the airz. The tower continues to erectify. That wasn’t a word, so don’t add it to your vocabulary. Meanwhile, in a completely differential part of town (I’m Edokko, so I think Eitaibashi is light years away from northerly Kanda), Big Bird and I walked around for a long time, decided we didn’t […]
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Sasazushi, Kanda (笹寿司)
Sasazushi is constant. Sasazushi doesn’t change. This is the first thing they say on the web site, which is pretty funny when you consider that the history page features a detailed explanation of all the various sushi carts and locations on both sides of the river that went into the lineage of the present-day Kanda […]
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Touran ramen, Kanda (桃蘭)
It’s an ill-advised wind, my friends, one that blows in from Kanda. It blows you down little alleys like this and into shops that aren’t likely to be very good. There’s a certain romance to seeking out hidden gems, but this is Tokyo. Depending on your reckoning there are 9 to 50 million people, and […]
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Cafe BRiO, Kanda (カフェ ブリオ)
Broken record, all this stuff about how I look at places and never go to them. Here’s another one. I’ll spare you. Pretty sure I got a takeout coffee here with Koala one time, but never wrote it up. It’s right out in the open – you almost can’t go to west-side Kanda without going […]