Houblon, Ginza

Boyz, this is it. You think you’ve been to a Belgian beer bar in Tokyo? If it wasn’t Houblon, you haven’t. They have the atmosphere, they have the food, and they have a menu big enough to break the camel’s back, with 300 types of beer (some of which are even in stock!).

There’s a rash of Belgian places in Tokyo. Not quite as bad as Spain bars, and better for me because I prefer Belgian beer to Spain bar. They’re all variations on a theme – how many beers do we have? Houblon leaves the competition in the dust. Actually it doesn’t even recognize the competition as competition. The point is the beer, and they have 300. More than a whole page of the book (the beer menu is bound in black and thicker than a steak in Texas) is devoted to raspberry beers. There is more than one banana beer. There are rafts of golden beer, brown beer, red beer, abbey beer, Wallonian Ale, and all manner of foolishness. I admit, we ran into a few that were not in stock, but what kinda tool orders oude geuze on a regular basis?Food is sorta Belgian-bar-in-Japan styled (not surprisingly). Beef stewed in beer. Namaham with potato salad. Mussels (not bad, not bad) and frites (pretty good, pretty good!). Nothing to write home about, but if you’re there for the food…why did you go there, and how are you reading this?Hoist a few.
03-3564-1671