Welcome to the first installment of Tonkatsu Tuesdays. Geez, I thought of all sorts of interesting things while I was eating today, but now I’ve forgotten and can’t promise that this will be interesting at all. Not to put too fine a point on it, I visited the tonkatsu place in Oazo that Ponkan and […]
Otemachi
- Otemachi
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Sozaiya, Otemachi
This will be a boring post – for some of us. If I’m not careful, I’ll finish going to all the restaurants in the basement of the neighboring Shin Otemachi building. They’re somewhat lackluster, but that’s Otemachi for you. I hope you’ve gotten that theme as it recurred over the past 8 months and over […]
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Kakoiya, Otemachi (かこいや)
It’s great to see things through other people’s eyes – today’s lunch featured some overseas guests, and the most normal things on the plate were suddenly strange and bizarre. And fishy. I got the sense that their overriding sense was a sense of fishiness. They were right, all those things did have fish in them. […]
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Zen, Otemachi (然)
Mmmmmmm, natural and healthy. I don’t mean that sarcastically, actually. Despite being focused on healthy food (and serving brown rice), this place was quite tasty. That’s probably why this visit marked an unheard-of third visit for Shaft (though of course a first for me). It’s in the basement of the new JA building, which I […]
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Asaji, Otemachi
haha, if you have to mess something up, do it right! Depending on your definitions, I may have eaten today at a place that I went to before – when it was in a different building and had a different menu and decor entirely. Well, I’ll chalk that up to experience. The basement-dwellers of the […]
Cafe Heimat, Otemachi
The basement of my favoritely-named ‘Nihon Building’ (I love the banality) contains all sort of sad little places. Here’s another one, to go with a sad rainy day. Rainy days, Mondays and anorexia always get me down. It’s a good thing today is Tuesday even though it’s the first day of the week. Things start […]
Kita no Maru, Otemachi (北の丸、新大手町ビル)
There’s a weird ‘network’ concept going on in Marunouchi. All of the buildings above a certain size seem to belong to a sort of neighborhood association for mutual benefit. Nothing sinister, of course – here in Japan even the mafia aren’t sinister. But they cross-promote each other through magazines, video screens and takeaway pamphlets in […]
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Tateshina Soba, Otemachi
You’ve been taught that business cards are of vital import in Japanese business life, right? I thought so. Now ponder what it means when a restaurant doesn’t have a card to give you, and in fact the very request sends the staff off in peals of laughter. I think it’s supposed to mean they’re too […]
Panino Giusto, Otemachi (Oazo)
Mucho Gusto! Wait, what does that mean? Panino Giusto is a little confusing too – an indoor/outdoor Italian restaurant specializing in hams? As with many of these things, the reality is a bit less interesting than the first paragraph.The big Oazo building has always felt a little under-baked to me. It’s big, but strangely empty […]
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Yoshida, Otemachi (生そば 吉田)
Soba!!!I’m glad it’s Friday so I can stop doing this excited one-word introduction gimmick. I’ve just been trying to something that would grab your attention. Actually this reminds me of a really funny comedy routine that my friend Fred did one time. As part of a larger show, he came out between various song-and-dance numbers […]