My colleague Waddap was in town from London, and since I’ve still never been to London this is the only chance we get to socialize. Here we are leaving the office. I like to call this ‘Still Life With Waddap’ except that he’s walking. I was keen to get back to Manaita after the lovely […]
Kanda
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Oedo, Kanda (大江戸)
Once in a while my fixation on the word ‘kappou’ gets me into trouble with a place that’s more expensive than I’d like it to be. On the other hand, eel is an inherently expensive item (whoulda thought?), so putting the two together isn’t a recipe for success, cost performance-wise. This place has nice atmosphere […]
- izakaya
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Manaita, Kanda (まないた)
Kanda…where magic happens. I like to call this ‘Still Life With Koala’, but she’s not that still. Manaita (cutting board) is the kind of place whose quality is screamingly obvious to me. Gently-flapping noren, hand-written sign and menus, immaculately clean, freshly-sanded counter…you’d be silly to not like this place. A lot. I definitely recommend it […]
Takaban, Jinbocho (鷹ばん、小川町)
Having some time to kill after work and before 8, I spied out something on the map that looked like it would pass the time. Takaban will bear further investigation since I just sat and read and nibbled and drank for an hour, but it could well be my new favorite place. The food seemed […]
Yamato Tonkatsu, Kanda (大和)
This whole 大和 thing, I don’t quite get it. It means something like ‘Japanese spirit’, that’s clear, but is there a difference between reading it ‘daiwa’ and ‘yamato’? One amusing thing is that my company has a direct competitor that uses the first reading. In what I presume was a bid to show national pride, […]
Shonosuke Sweets, Kanda (庄之助、淡路町)
Small sushi lunches just don’t fill a guy up, especially not one with bulging…err, muscles, like me. But I really do need to lose some weight, eh, and managed to avoid eating anything too bad after lunch. Still, I knew there was this quaint old sweet shop… I first saw Shonosuke when I went to […]
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Isohana, Kanda (磯はな、司町)
Kanda…where magic happens. Went up to the same little alley I mentioned in the linked post – there were two very worthwhile places there. The better looking, whose offering I don’t really understand (language issues) but whose style I admire…is closed on Wednesdays. That means that after the requisite walk-around-to-confirm, I ended up back across […]
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Genraku ramen, Kanda (元楽)
Kanda…where magic happens. Mondays always produce disgruntlage and a desire to forget the office for an hour. Today I was thinking of trying to find a particular ramen shop that I loved in the past but isn’t on any map, Yokohama-style in Kanda; found it but didn’t go. As usual , I couldn’t resist the […]
Yamakyu, Kanda (山久)
Every time I eat an oyakodon I think of Paul Simon; I can’t help it. It’s not very original (because I write it every time as well) but that’s one of my favorites among his songs. Oyakodon itself is a hard thing – I think it’s not really appealing to foreigners in its truest form. […]
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Otsukiya, Kanda (おつき屋)
Much in the same way that Alvin Lucier famously once got wicked stoned and recorded himself sitting in a room for several hours, today I came up with the idea of mangling meaning through recursive translation. Of course if this were done by a good human translator, it could come out sensibly. So let’s leave […]