I’d like to use this intermediate post (between yesterday’s lunch and dinner) as a mechanism for discussing several dimensions that interest me within the socio-psychological framework of restaurant selection, including the relative importance assigned by the customer to aspects within the restaurant’s value dialogue and also the proper identification and typification of restaurants based on […]
mid-price
Ashi Mashi, Otemachi (阿詩瑪石,大手町センタービル)
A slightly mysterious and not-that-well-traveled byway leads to the dining floors of the Otemachi Center Building. It’s mysterious for several reasons – there aren’t that many places to eat, and many of them are quite ordinary destinations (cheap chain izakaya Ootoya?). Furthermore, some of them have massive lines at 11:35, so maybe the byway’s not […]
So Tired, Marunouchi
Again braving the crappy weather, Zone and I headed down to Shin Maru (again) but tried a different floor. We got off the elevator at 6, where I was reminded that that’s the floor with only a few restaurants (including Salt, my Australian colleagues are no doubt thinking), and headed up to 7. This is […]
Kushi Kushi, Maebashi (串くし)
What kind of place is Maebashi? One of the bigger buildings that I could see from my hotel was called Maebashi City Hall, and I’ll leave it to the katakana readers to interpret シティーホール for the rest… Honestly, the biggest remaining industry in Maebashi seems to be clubs, but even the best clubs have a […]
Uguisu, Maebashi
DISCLAIMER: This post has very little to do with food. It’s more of a disjointed travelogue about a mediocre country town. And it’s not even much of that. But it IS long… The last post (delivered via mobile!) may have been a bit confusing if anyone was paying attention. I decided a quick overnight trip […]
Tenpachi, Tokyo (天ぱち, 東京駅キッチンストリート)
Tenpachi only gives out half-size business cards, so I’ll keep this brief. So I had lunch with Gita, who doesn’t eat animals (fish are OK) and we went to Kitchen Street in Tokyo Station. Something about that place makes me eat fried food; I would have been tempted by the beef-focused places if not for […]
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Bistro Columbus, Kanda
I’m not at all sure how I came to be in Kanda. No altered states were involved; I just started in Ochanu, disgruntled because I couldn’t find any of the things I wanted to look at in the guitar stores, thought of a place I wanted to go, found it full, kept walking to Akiba, […]
Urizun, Marunouchi (うりずん、新丸５階)
On a tear with the Shin Marus these days, aren’t we? In response to a recent conversation with one of our most dedicated and fatherly readers, I counted the actual number of restaurants. Minus the ‘specialty shops’ and coffee places and supermarkets and dedicated bars, Shin Maru alone has 4 restaurants in the basement, 1 […]
Cita Cita, Marunouchi (丸ビル５階)
How many Citas does it take to screw in a light bulb? How many dollars will it take to save Citabank? Hopefully it’s only 2, because the Soho Restaurant Group has only one outlet of this marque (the group also includes Roy’s, Xen and other Roppongi Hillz dwellerz). On a dark and rainy day when […]
Taruzen, Marunouchi (たる善, 新丸５階)
My friends, not eating a lot of meat has several strange effects on a person. The main one that I always notice is a powerful craving for meat, and over the past few days it’s been no exception. After a big beef-oriented Saturday night, I didn’t eat much protein for a couple days, and yesterday […]