Rocky Top, Ginza

Japan is a strange and wonderful place. Hidden subcultures about – usually these only peek out for a moment when some intrepid foreign journalist comes to town and writes a story about a colorful character in one of them. You read it, you think it’s interesting, and you forget about it. I started playing music […]

Bel Age Lounge, Otemachi

America would do well to heed comments about Japan’s Lost Decade. It’s a scary prospect – your economy goes sideways for 10 years and then never really recovers. I think it’s too early to declare a Prognosis For America (this would be my sweeping social contract-like name). ‘Green Shoots’ sentiments aside, you really shouldn’t be too […]

Cafe Heimat, Otemachi

The basement of my favoritely-named ‘Nihon Building’ (I love the banality) contains all sort of sad little places. Here’s another one, to go with a sad rainy day. Rainy days, Mondays and anorexia always get me down. It’s a good thing today is Tuesday even though it’s the first day of the week. Things start […]

Steak Seitou, Tokyo

July 16th, 2009. 8:33 AM. Ding has pointed out that the reason I couldn’t find the website for this place was that I was spelling it wrong. A thousand pardons.________________________________________________________ Ahhhh, Japanese people are really into things. I love that cliche, especially when I get to live it. One of my newer colleagues recommended Saitou […]

Bistro Bonnes Mares, Kanda

How do people decide they’ve had enough – learned enough, pushed enough, grown enough – and it’s time to settle in?Moreover, is it wrong to do this? Especially if you’re doing your thing better than most people could?And is it indicative of a deeper pathology that I read restaurant reviews while eating lunch? (This has […]