As a second choice to take The Peacocks, this was a bit more gritty than Koto (most things would be, in truth). I’ve seen Tori Ton for years without going in – maybe it was the 3-foot high doorway that put me off? Turns out they can open a full-size door to let you out […]
dinner
Koto, Monzennakacho ( 古都 魚河岸料理)
Back when I was young and first started coming to Japan, it was always for winter vacations. Because of that, Japan felt like the country of freedom, the place where I didn’t have responsibilities (an odd twist, wouldn’t you say?), and that made me love it here. To this day, certain things give me the […]
- Italian
- ...
Della Collina, Ebisu
Della Collina comes to us via a recommendation from Ponkan, who went there for a work dinner (nice job pulling that one off!). It’s a nice modern Italian place, with ambience and service that will appeal to people with certain quality expectations, and nice food at decent prices. One mildly unfortunate point is that you […]
- izakaya
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Sake no Ana, Ginza (酒の穴)
[December 2010: I see a lot of people getting to this page as a result of searches on the Google. I wanted to say: there are better places out there, even in the neighborhood. You should check out the Izakayas page. My new favorite is Moromiya, which is practically right up the road. Now back […]
- izakaya
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Yukari, Kamiyamada (ゆかり)
What’s that you say? More pictures of wacky Showa stuff? Here’s one of a shooting gallery at night. Folks, this is fer ril. They really do want you to pay money to shoot corks from toy rifles and try to win tiny prizes. Nifty. The specialty at Yukari is evidently yakitori, but everyone there was […]
Hagoromo, Kamiyamada (羽衣)
Various activities ensued after my ramen lunch and before dinner – walking to the (dead boring) temple on top of the local mountain, more photos, nap. You don’t get any pics of that. You DO get this neat picture of a retro streetlight. No processing; the colors here seem to be on accounta some confusion […]
- izakaya
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Santensan, Kamiyamada (三天参,上山田)
I hit the city ’bout 9 PM, loaded, loaded… OK, not exactly – 9 PM, but not at all loaded, and with no sort of Rob Halford vibe going on, I promise. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. On a loose whim, I made another one of these short trips to random, depressed country […]
Kuruma, Tokyo (車, Tokia B1)
Continuing in a series of “Hey, I haven’t seen you for a year!”-type meetings, Roofie and I met up last night. Somehow these meetings with men from work always devolve into chicken-fests. In this case, I have the rare pleasure of questioning the existence of a restaurant, or at least providing a strong steer about […]
- izakaya
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Kawashima, Musashi Koyama (川島)
In one of the standard books on drinking sake in Tokyo, there’s an establishment called ‘Sake no Ana’. I like to translate that as ‘The Liquor Hole’, although I’m sure there’s a more delicate way of putting it. If I had to assign a name to Kawashima, it would be ‘The Liquor Cave’. It’s a […]
Hana Modern, Kagurazaka (華もだん)
Japanese people, damn your language. I was moping around the counter at this place, thinking how crappy it was that I couldn’t understand what ‘modan’ meant. Written in hiragana, I assumed it was a regional word or something. Then I noticed it was written ‘modern’ on their business card, and I said “damn your language”. […]