Hap, Kagurazaka

After being a bit disappointed with the Artist Cafe, I wanted to redeem the evening by walking around somewhere nice – and thought that Kagurazaka was close. Y’know, it’s hard to find stuff there when walking around at random. Hap, I think I had seen before on a random expedition. It’s kinda neat and modern-looking […]

Artist Cafe, Korakuen

This sounds like a great idea – live jazz every night with stunning views from the 43rd floor of Tokyo Dome Hotel. In practice, it’s a little less impressive than that… The decor and menu are a little on the family-restaurant side. I know they’d be pizzed to read that, but it’s true. The names […]

Pui, Kiba

The whole team here at EOITwJ has done a LOT of scouting missions around the greater Monzennakacho area (the ‘metro area’ we like to call it). Outside the main regions, there isn’t usually much to see, and things don’t come and go the way they do on the Monnaka back streets either. So when we […]

Wansu, Ebisu

Well, Korean food is not one of my specialties, but this makes two Fridays in a row that EOITwJ has gotten all jiggy with the togarashi. This week’s event, organized by Shaft, was much more Korean than Karaya last week, which was a good (but not better) thing. The atmosphere and menu are too different […]

Pasela, Ginza

As in the previous (really rather embarrassing) post, I’d like to ruminate on some things. I’ll get back to food eventually, I promise, and hit it hard over the weekend for the benefit of all and sundry. In Australia, people liked to say ‘horses for courses’ to mean that different things are appropriate in different […]

Aquavit, Gaienmae

Lest anyone think that EOITwJ is strictly an OL-style lunch blog liberally peppered with snarky comments and random musical asides, here’s some genuine fine dining. Aquavit hit my radar through the glossy pages of Tokyo Calendar, where it featured in one of the ‘style’ posts – models lounging around the restaurant, little to no food […]

Karaya, Shinbashi (甘楽屋、内幸町)

Ohhhh, when will I learn kanji my friends? Only last night I was still making the beginner’s mistake of confusing ‘spicy’ for ‘happy’. Quel embarassment, as they say in France when they’re tourists and also can’t spell. One could hopefully be forgiven for not correctly guessing the correct pronunciation of either the name or the […]