After planning to visit the Salon du Chocolate at Shinjuku Isetan, it seemed almost like a requirement to visit one of the many eastside Shinjuku bistros afterward. I cast about with my new favorite tool, Google Maps (seriously – just search for ‘bistro’ or whatever you want, within the neighborhood that you want, and you’ll […]
Shinjuku
Salon du Chocolat, Isetan Shinjuku
Tokyo has nearly limitless capacity to delight, and to disappoint. I thought I was terribly clever for proposing a late-afternoon trip to Shinjuku Isetan and the 2010 Salon du Chocolat. This is a fabulous event – what is ostensibly a trade fair for the chocolate industry in Paris is transplanted and reimagined as a consumer […]
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Golden Gai, Shinjuku
It’s great to have foreign visitors – the effort to do something fun with them can really take you out of your normal zones. I hardly never go to Shinjuku, but in the course of this one night was able to visit a bunch of the famous sights, ending up with drinks in a randomly-picked […]
Uobaka Santaro
Remember, Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance. A lack of adherence to this rule is how I came to be eating at this establishment, rather than it’s brother around the corner, on a day where they didn’t really even have fish. Still, would you think that a casual restaurant in Shinjuku specializing in squid would be […]
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Hub, Shinjuku
“Arrrrr, here be beer, me hearties!” said Captain Jake as we entered Hub. He had been, and continued to be, discombobulated by the lack of western-style drinking establishments in Japan. I include Hub, a chain of English-style pubs, mainly to make this point. It’s nice to have the English and Irish places out there so you […]
Saudade, Shinjuku
So I went to Shinjuku to look for some shoes. Foreigner? Wear large sizes? Tired of being laughed out regular stores for having big feet, or tired of trying to make do with the one pair of daggy brown shoes they have in your size? Hikari is your place (weirdly, I think this Kutsu no […]
Taco Derio, Shinjuku (御苑ぐらい)
The search for quality Mexican food in Tokyo, my friends, stops here. But only briefly. And then it continues on its way, sadly shaking its head from side to side. That’s an overstatement, and the tacos here were certainly not bad. The tortillas were not at all bad, but very thin in an almost rice-paper […]
Rock Inn, Shinjuku
The latest in a continuing but rare series of posts (this is the second one, isn’t it?) about guitar stores. Rock Inn has a few stores around Shinjuku, with the main two right across from each other in the alleys of 3-chome behind Mitsukoshi (I say this to remind myself for next time). They have […]
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Carta Bianca, Nishi Shinjuku
Shinjuku is a difficult area for me. It’s huge, it’s complex, I get confused, and it’s tough to find restaurants worth going to. Clue me in if you have good ideas; I struggle a lot. Recently I needed a destination for a holiday lunch with Nanban (南蛮) and others, and happened across this charming-looking place […]
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Osteria Vincero, Shinjuku (三丁目)
Continuing with our neighborhood exploration theme (after the recent Kagurazaka excursions) the EOITwJ staff returned yet again to the greater Shinjuku area following the weekend’s exploration of Arakicho. At less than 20 minutes from the office, it’s not so onerous to head over here after work. On short notice, the Scheduling Team reviewed available options […]