Kashiwa is a bit out there, to the northwest, but worth a late-afternoon trip since there are a bunch of nice-looking izakayas scattered about the town. It’s surprisingly big, having a Takashimaya, Marui and various other department stores; clearly a major outlying town and one of the bigger in Chiba. First on the agenda was […]
cheap
- Otemachi
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Mimikyu Soba, Otemachi (美美久)
This is a real, old-fashioned salaryman soba lunch hangout…which makes it quite sensible that I went there with my company’s CEO (and that’s pretty funny isn’t it? The American equivalent would be ‘just grabbing a burger with Lloyd Blankfein’.) If you go, expect to be elbow-to-elbow at formica-topped tables with middle-aged and older guys in […]
Kaotai, Marunouchi
Today really didn’t start out that well – a little rainy, went for a run, thinking about an unfortunate email overnight, walked to work, quiet. For lunch I wanted to get more exercise and thus walked down to My Plaza like yesterday, bringing the total restaurants I’ve been to in their food floor to 3 […]
- Italian
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di Andoh, Kanda
Even by the standards of a group dinner for 20 people, this casual Italian place was poor. $40 for food plus all-you-can-drink is cheap, sure, but there’s no sense in it if the cost performance is still low. I swear the pizza was premade at someone’s apartment, not in the brick oven pictured on the […]
Fukahama, Fukagawa （深はま、深川）
You know it’s not often that I double-post places – it means I really like them. I really like Fukahama. When readers Kwong and Hachi came to town (and this was not a short trip by any means) and suggested we meet, I quickly thought of Fukahama as a place that does really well at […]
Mother Kurkku, Harajuku
The little Kurkku chain seems to be straddling all sorts of concepts, not in a bad way. There’re organic ingredients, hip atmosphere (turntables), cafe food, bar bottles, and a full restaurant, all in two places next to each other in an obscure bit of Jingumae. It was pleasant! Look at the web site and you’ll […]
- izakaya
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Asahi, Kasai (ろばた旭、葛西)
After leaving Uogokoro, I felt like the night was young. I had neither eaten nor drunk much, and more to the point I hadn’t found any funny people to hang out with. The closest was the really rough looking party down the counter who were talking about me until I mentioned that I could understand […]
- izakaya
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Uogokoro, Kasai (魚ごころ、葛西)
So, you know, a stressful week at work…made me want to do something quiet and contemplative, by myself. So I looked up some likely sake places in… and headed along after work. Let’s not beat about the bushes, Kasai is pretty dull. I went out this way once before (it’s farther east than my place, […]
Byakuran, Kanda (白蘭)
Look, You was really excited to take me to this place, and I confess there was some attraction in the utterly decrepit surroundings and very happy customers. But I didn’t really get it. My problem is simple: ankake. If you’re an American of a certain age, you may think of Chinese food as ‘gloppy’. As […]
- Otemachi
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Intermezzo, Otemachi
That’s a fancy name for a sandwich cafe. And while I’m at it, sandwich cafe? How many times have I bemoaned the lack of decent sandwiches in Japan? This didn’t fix it, but it’s cheap, pleasant, and open long hours (at least at 3:30 when I went). I had a ‘Simple Egg Sandwich’, which lived […]