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 […]
cafe
Lautrec, Nihonbashi (ロートレック)
From somewhere I conceived the idea that this vaguely French-bistro themed restaurant would be vaguely European and perhaps good. The windows are filled with various Francophile trinkets, and even the interior gives you some idea that they’re trying to be Euro. Incidentally, note the almost-open cherry blossoms artfully included in the shot. Perhaps it’s more […]
- Otemachi
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San Mari Tearoom, Otemachi
A laaate lunch put me in mind of these places in the basement of the building across the street that stay open all hours. They’re ‘tea rooms’, or kissa, as you like, and this looked like the most likely contender – at least on the smokey atmosphere dimension. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t smoke […]
- Kyoto
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Kasagiya, Kyoto (かさぎ屋)
If you were only going to eat old-fashioned Japanese-style tea and sweets once, this would be the place. It’s not because there’s anything marvelous about the food or drink. It’s because there are so few places where you can duck off an insanely picturesque street (Ninenzaka, near Kiyomizu Temple) and immediately enter another, quieter world. […]
- Kyoto
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Kamo Mitarashi Chaya, Kyoto (加茂みたらし茶屋（亀屋粟義))
Love was in the air as we walked down to Shimogamo shrine. Seriously, this is a sweet picture, isn’t it? And despite, or perhaps because of, a volumific but uninspiring luncheon, we were more than willing to eat more. Especially given our love of sweets, and generic desire to eat mitarashi dango while in Kyoto. […]
- Kyoto
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Sarasa Pausa, Kyoto (サラサ麩屋町PAUSA)
We’ll return to this theme repeatedly over the next couple reviews, but the neighborhood blocked out by the Kamo River and Karasuma Street on the east and west, then Oike Street and Shijo Street on the north and south, is probably the coolest in the world. It has all the old-fashioned, mildly touristy charms of […]
Chikalicious Dessert Bar, New York
I left Peels today with a mission, or more specifically two recommended dessert-focused shops to try. Since I had already skipped work to try to meet Shuna, I figured what the hey and started walking to her two recs. The first was farther over in the East Village – home of various movie/TV shoots like this one, […]
Peels, New York
I went to New York on this trip with two goals (outside the whole ‘complete a major presentation for work’ thing, which is peripheral to eating, wouldn’t you agree?): the first was to visit the Dream House. I failed. The second was to eat desserts sprung from the mind of Shuna Lydon. I succeeded, and […]
- coffee
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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 […]
Murakamiya, Sendai (村上屋餅店)
Japanese regional specialties are fraught – so many, so dull. I’m not even sure if zunda mochi are much of a specialty. Maybe we just thought they were famous because they occupied two whole pages in the travel magazine we bought in advance? Even if it was just a monthly promotion, it’s a good regional […]