SouthWest NY

Noted Southwestern cooking experts Abraham Merchant and Richard Cohn promulgated this restaurant in the bottom of World Financial Center. It’s like all the restaurants in the building – good in the pictures, but sorta brash and lacking charm in person. When it’s busy at lunch, it’s pretty tiring. I should know – I went twice, on […]

American, Shibuya

‘Tis the season, folks, and nothing says FESTIVE to me like a baby plastic tree in the stony lobby of a Shibuya-crossing mid-rise! Our merry crew was practically chorusing in the aisles as ve valtzed to the elevators for round 2 of this forget-the-year party. But hell, it got even better when we got upstairs! American […]

Swede’s Inn, Swedesboro

Well, this is it. The whole reason I went on this trip in September instead of May was to play this show. We had been working on a CD for the prior year+, and having completed it a few months before,scheduled a rockin’ good time for ourselves at the Swede’s – 4 bands featuring various […]

Winnie’s Le Bus, Manayunk

Been to Manayunk? It’s still a nice area – I love all the old houses and older buildings, squeezed together in a setting that almost feels turn-of-the-century. If I could point to a downside, I think it’s not a very robust neighborhood. Based on the concentration of restaurants vs. all other types of business, it’s […]

Riverwinds, Deptford

This trip was funny because I saw a number of people that I haven’t seen for years. And I mean 11, 12 and 19 years, at least for the three I’m thinking of. There were others that I’m not sure about, timing-wise. The most recent of those was Swayhoover, whose (maiden) name is quite entertaining […]

West Park Cafe, Kamiyacho

Before launching into a short and dull review of a place every foreigner in Tokyo probably knows, let me ask a simple question: Why did Josie Cotton never make it big? I was just listening to Convertible Music, which is a truly excellent confection of 80’s girl-rock. Sure, many people know songs like He Could […]

Very Berry Cafe, Kyoto

A few curious things here. One is that the neighborhood of Kyoto behind the city hall has an abnormal number of modern, foreign restaurants and cafes mixed in with the old vegetable shops and paper stores. It’s quite nice, especially ‘Gokomachi street’ where we stayed. Another curious thing is the trend toward hyper-American cafes in […]

The Grill Room, New York

When a place describes itself as ‘sumptuously understated’, you get a good idea what you’re in for. And the Grill Room doesn’t disappoint. It’s expensive, lame, and a little tacky. Still, for a business lunch in World Financial Center, it delivers on the criticial ‘location’ dimension, and that may be enough. The view of the river is […]