Jude Brand - The Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Jul 23, 2004

Fuji Rock's nightlife takes it off the scale

A good three-point formula to apply when reviewing a bar is to consider 1) the setting, 2) the people and 3) the music. These are the main ingredients that best sum it up and measure its potential. Some places score higher on some counts than they do on others, but the nightlife at the Fuji Rock Festival busts the Richter scale on all three. I should know: I've been every year since it began in 1997 and partied till dawn at most of them. It's hard not to.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Jun 25, 2004

Putting a bit of Color into the Meguro scene

Like Nakameguro 10 years ago, Meguro proper is one of those areas that has been quietly amassing bars and nightlife options over the last few years. When I first heard that Color, a multilevel restaurant and bar complex, had opened just down the hill from Meguro Station, I wasn't surprised. I was, however, expecting it to be a big place -- a towering beacon in the night, like the legendary multilevel club Gold in Shibaura in the early '90s.

LIFE / Food & Drink / NIGHT SPY NEWS

Jun 25, 2004

Reasons to be happy

From last month, The Pink Cow in Shibuya has been entertaining the late-night crowd by staying open till 5 a.m. on both Friday and Saturday nights. As extra incentive to rope more mad cows into the corral, they're offering special Happy Hour prices with Sapporo Kuro draft beer, all basic mixed drinks and the house wine going for only 500 yen from midnight till dawn (and all other drinks discounted 100 yen off the menu price). "If no one's here by 3 a.m.," says owner Traci Consoli, "then we'll close early, so the best thing to do if it's getting late is to call -- if we know you're coming we'll stay open." They are also hiring DJs and encouraging all cowpokes to "shake their booties and have a hoof stompin' good time." The Pink Cow: 1-3-18 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku; tel. (03) 3406-5597; www.thepinkcow.com Bit of the bubbly Club Shampoo is a new party co-hosted by Phil Miller (of Pylon fame) and Kevin Clone (of TBS Kokogahendayo Nihonjin fame). But as with any party that Phil hosts, the only bubbles you'll find in evidence will come gushing out of a bottle of champagne -- not a bottle of shampoo. The venue for these rooftop barbecue bashes is Yaffa Organic Cafe, right across the street from Starbucks/Tsutaya in the Roppongi Hills complex. They are held every Saturday night 9 p.m.-5 a.m. and feature different DJs each week (alumni include DJ Juri [Gold Finger] and Robert Palmer [Spice]). Entry is 2,000 yen with one drink. (If you're on the mailing list, it's only 1,500 yen, with one drink.)Club Shampoo at Yaffa Organic Cafe: Roppongi La Place, 3F, 5-10-25 Roppongi, Minato-ku; tel. (03) 5770-4788.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

May 28, 2004

Rockin' till dawn in the heart of suburbia

Kichijoji is a good 20 minutes west of Shibuya on an express train, which places it smack dab in the middle of Tokyo's suburban belt. As such, it's the last place one would think of finding a bar dedicated to rock culture -- let alone one with a pedigree spanning a quarter of a century and with a provocative name like Bar Jap (only a local could get away with calling a bar that).

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Apr 23, 2004

Jazz retreat for night and day

Volontaire is a soothing retreat for jazz lovers that has stood its ground for the last three decades in Harajuku -- a neighborhood where bars change like the season's fashions. In Yuri Sakanoue's 27 years behind the counter, she has seen them all come and go. Unmoved, she has steadfastly maintained her hideaway from the mundane and the frivolous.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Mar 26, 2004

Meet the Office manager

Everybody knows about Office in Kita-Aoyama -- the funky little fifth-floor, no-elevator hangout with a photocopier next to the DJ booth. But few people have had the pleasure of meeting Sadahiro Nakamura. Then again, you may have met him and just not realized that he was the man behind the scene and proprietor of a burgeoning night empire. His boyish appearance belies his 33 years and success in business -- as I found out recently, when we met for a chat.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Feb 27, 2004

Hanging heavy in the sumo heartland

For Tokyoites, Ryogoku is synonymous with sumo. And, until a few months ago, that was all it meant to me. Ryogoku is two stops east of Akihabara on the JR Sobu line and is also accessible via Asakusabashi-Ryogoku Station on the Oedo subway line.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Jan 23, 2004

Spinning funky music on Naeba's Snodeck

Let me say right up front that I don't much care for snow. While Tokyo constantly disappoints by failing to deliver a white Christmas, that's about as far as my interest goes. And though I have enjoyed the thrills and spills of skiing a few times (before the advent of the snowboard, I admit), the experience was hardly enough to hook me. So believe me when I tell you that the only thing that lured me up to spend New Year's in Naeba, Niigata Prefecture, was the promise of finding a good bar.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Dec 26, 2003

Round 'bout midnight

It's that time of the year again, when everybody is steadily moving into party mode as the big countdown approaches. Some punters will simply be dancing in the streets to celebrate. Others will take to the expressways: Reportedly over 6,000 bosozoku (hot-rodders and hot-doggers on motorcycles) choked Tokyo's highways last New Year's Eve.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Nov 28, 2003

Happy Jack is right on target

In all my years in Tokyo, I have never before found a cool bar in Gotanda. Sure, I've happened on a few in and around Osaki and Meguro, the stops on either side on the Yamanote Line loop -- but never one in Gotanda itself.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Oct 24, 2003

A chill double-bill in the heart of Shibuya

When Matt Nieman and Greg Natali were kids growing up in Philadelphia, neither one of them could have imagined that they would end up living and running nightclubs in Tokyo.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Sep 5, 2003

Pastures new for The Pink Cow

Many of you may have been sad to hear that The Pink Cow was closing. Even though it only closed to relocate, the original Harajuku space had a quirky, living-room feeling that many will miss.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Aug 10, 2003

Up-tempo hangout just down the hill

Azabu Juban is a short stroll down the hill from both the new Roppongi Hills complex and Roppongi crossing. But whereas the new Mori complex has given Roppongi a bump up in the sophistication stakes, it merely adds to what is already on offer in Azabu Juban, which has long been the neighborhood of choice for more mature-minded inner-city habitues.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Jul 27, 2003

Yet another reason to head to Roppongi

Home is where the heart is, as they say. Well, the hottest new home for the after-office crowd in Roppongi, it would seem, is Heartland bar in the Roppongi Hills complex. This is where, as every evening unfolds, you will find a steady flow of both foreign and Japanese coworkers and friends dropping by for a drink or two after work. And come Friday night, the place gets mobbed. But why, I found myself wondering, is Heartland so popular?

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Jul 13, 2003

Out of the way, but never too far

After S'ayak has the disadvantage of being somewhat difficult to find. It is tucked away in a dark alley off a relatively well-patronized neighborhood shopping street lined with many cool little sake bars and eateries. You have to know it's there to find it.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Jun 27, 2003

Prepare for lift-off: destination, the stars

Having spent the best part of two decades prowling Roppongi at street level, my first visit to the Roppongi Hills Club felt like an out-of-body experience. Hovering an awesome 51 floors above the network of increasingly seedy bars below, my spirit could not help but feel elevated. The club is so far above ground, in fact, that I bumped my nose on the window when trying to spot Roppongi Crossing below.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Jun 1, 2003

Cool just around the corner

I held out no great hope for a positive outcome to a recent visit to the Ginza. Dante, the chef who some of you may remember from Tokyo Salon in the Vision Network complex in Omotesando, wanted me to come and taste his new Italian set dinner, which he has added to the menu at NB Club, a restaurant featuring live music. The place is huge, the food and music top-drawer, but the owners agreed -- it's a restaurant, not a bar.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

May 18, 2003

Palms Lounge -- they're coming to getcha

Sometimes life's a beach. And sometimes it's a lounge. Such is life for Seiji Endo, the twentysomething surfer who runs Palms Lounge.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

May 4, 2003

Diving into some deep blue soul

Eight years ago, there used to be a tiny but dead-cool soul bar called Gonbe in Todoroki, in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward. This area is better known as an upmarket residential neighborhood than as a place to find a hot little bar. Nevertheless, Gonbe was packed every night, but then, in a place that felt crowded with six customers, that wasn't too hard.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Apr 20, 2003

An aroma of l'amour at Le Faubourg

Le Faubourg is a stylish lounge bar in the fashionable Aoyama district of Tokyo. The area is to Tokyo what Madison Avenue is to New York. This is where you'll find showcase boutiques for famous Japanese designers, like Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto, as well as internationally renowned brands such as Luis Vuitton and Chanel.

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