A combination of train delays and the restaurant I had intended to eat at closing earlier than advertised meant that I had to find a replacement on the hoof. Fortunately, I was in the Isetan department store in Kyoto Station. The top two floors ...

Shucking an oyster is harder than it sounds. A fair amount of dexterity is required to pry open the mollusk’s tight-lipped shell and liberate the flesh. The one time I tried to open an oyster with a shucking knife, I ended up smashing it ...

With months of nothing but sun, Japanese summers can sap your will to live. Be grateful, then, for the arrival of kakigōri (shaved ice). In fact, it’s about the only thing to look forward to between now and November. Nakamuraken is a cafe beside ...

The staff at Soul Snacks in Ginza will politely recommend that you move the tiny chicken drumsticks out of the way before you cover your waffle with syrup and butter, but disregard that. As awful as it sounds, the chicken tastes best doused with ...

This month A Taste of Home is taking a field trip to Oizumi, Gunma Prefecture. Oizumi, an otherwise ordinary town, is home to roughly 4,000 Brazilians — about one-tenth of the local population. Most of them work in nearby factories (Subaru is a big ...

It looks like the end of the line for one of Japan’s best-loved summer dining rituals. Unagi (eels) are on the endangered list, with catches plummeting and prices heading skyward. The annual “unagi day” summer feeding frenzy has an uncertain future, and so too ...

While bars often use tactics such as offering healthy low-calorie food items or fruity cocktails on the menu to attract female customers, Aisekiya in Akabane resorts to an extreme that most sane businesses would not risk: Women can drink as much as they want ...

France-born, New York-based super-chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten has some two dozen restaurants, spread over six countries on three continents. Now he’s added Japan to that impressive list. Jean-Georges Tokyo opened in March in the compact premises near Roppongi Hills formerly occupied by Le Chocolat de ...

One of the best beverages to combat this sticky weather is Kirin Sekai no Kitchen’s Salty Lychee drink, which is purported to replenish the minerals and fluids sweat out in Japan’s horribly humid summers. And now, in partnership with Glico, Kirin has released a ...

When the first Biergarten (beer gardens) started popping up in Germany’s Bavarian region in the late 19th century, who would’ve thought that they would one day come to represent summer in Japan. Well, I guess it’s not that unbelievable. These days, with so many ...

Now that we’re well out of cherry-blossom season, the next round of outdoor drinking parties will take us out into the beer garden. The muggy heat may seem tolerable only with an ice-cold ale in hand, but clinical psychologist Jim McRae says drinking shouldn’t ...

Now that ramen has taken its place alongside sushi as the world’s favorite Japanese food, it’s easy to forget what the noodle landscape was like just a couple of decades ago. Back in the 1990s, foreigners knew ramen — if they knew it at ...