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P/CLOUDY
NTT DoCoMo Inc., despite being Japan’s biggest mobile phone carrier, has been struggling against tough smartphone competition from KDDI Corp. and Softbank Corp., which is leading in that area. But one edge that the cellphone behemoth — it has more than 60 million subscribers ...
Throughout most of Japan, June is the rainy season. While all that rainfall is great for rice paddies so that we can have delicious new harvest rice in the fall, it makes it a rather dull month for seasonal produce: The summer’s bounty of ...
If you don’t get into the ring once or twice, then you’re a coward, Geoffrey Ima says as he describes people’s attitudes toward boxing in his hometown in Uganda. Ima has been in the ring hundreds of times and came to love boxing so ...
Claude Regy says the team at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) threw him the “best birthday party ever” when he arrived in Japan just days after the actual May 1 occasion. The 90-year-old French director is hoping for an even better birthday gift, ...
The 27-year-old defender says he was ready for a change of scenery after helping Sanfrecce Hiroshima win theJ. League title last season.
Japan's prodigious ability to assimilate, reproduce and then develop homegrown adaptations of products from other cultures is legendary. Why should it be any different when it comes to patisseries?
The red-framed doors and purple canopy that mark the front of Le Verre Vole a Tokyo are a cheerful sight at any time of year. In the chill dark dead of winter, their glow is even more welcoming, especially if you’re arriving on ...
After queuing on the street, diners sit next to strangers inside the cramped Ho Hung Kee (Ho Hung’s restaurant) eatery in Hong Kong before rinsing their own cutlery. Welcome to the world’s cheapest Michelin-starred experience. Ho Hung Kee was first awarded a coveted star ...
In Hanoi, it is a truth universally acknowledged that the best “pho” noodle soup is found in the grimiest restaurants, where the staff are rude, the lines long, and the surroundings spartan at best.
Doritos and Budweiser, canapes and Champagne, jamon and Tempranillo — when it comes to happy hour, everyone has their favorite combination of booze and umami-infused treats.
Before refrigeration became widespread in the late 1950s, fresh, unprocessed fish was only available to the well-to-do or people living on the coasts.
First impressions are everything — and at Convivio they are distinctly underwhelming. The elevator entrance, just off a busy main street in brash Shinjuku, is right by the service counter of a KFC outlet, the stern glare of the Colonel seeming to reproach you ...
Considering that Singapore is famous for being one of the world’s most delicious cities, it is surprising that Singaporean food doesn’t have more cachet, or at least more of a presence, in Japan. As Japanese teenagers growing up in Singapore, Daimu Kato and Kota ...
Call it the Pancake Revolution. During the past five years, Japanese diners have become enamored with inventive takes on classic Western breakfast dishes. Unlike many homegrown culinary trends, though, this movement is being driven by big-name chefs and dining groups arriving from overseas with ...
It’s official: Natural wines are entering mainstream consciousness in Japan. I know this not simply because sections devoted to organic, “bio” (biodynamic), or shizen-ha (natural) wines have become fixtures in many retail shops, or even because sales of natural wines have risen around the ...
Tradition rules at this time of year, and few parts of Tokyo are more traditional than the grid of narrow streets to the south of Ueno’s Shinobazu Pond. Although many of the buildings in this former geisha district have seen much better days, there ...
Before we usher out the Dragon and ring in the Snake, it’s time to pause, look back and appreciate all the fine eating that Tokyo has provided this year. Gongs and rankings are meaningless in a city the size of Tokyo: How can anyone ...