Jude Brand - The Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Feb 24, 2002

George's Bar, on a corner of the former site of the Defense Agency headquarters in Roppongi, needs no introduction to its hundreds of regulars. For those who haven't dropped by recently, though, I have some good news and some bad news.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Feb 17, 2002

The heart of the jungle

While the ink on this page was still drying, several dozen bankers were careening toward the hangover of a lifetime. Of course, a Sunday hangover is nothing unusual for the average salaried employee, but for these chosen few -- these fast-track Masters of the Universe with brain cells aplenty to burn, who play by their own rules and rarely limit their drinking to the weekend -- today will be painful to remember, impossible to forget and likely to ignite a bonfire of profanity.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Feb 10, 2002

Home with the best

Being the youngest in a large family meant, in my case, becoming an auntie when I was still in my teens. And during my long self-exile in Japan, I patiently awaited the arrival of a new generation of travelers -- but then started feeling neglected as one nephew and niece after another circled the world without dropping by for a cup of tea at Auntie Jude's.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Feb 3, 2002

A bar that's right on the Button

Ebisu hides many secrets -- especially at night. And Button -- a neat, two-story attic perched on top of a building near the Nishi-Ebisu fiveways -- is one of the area's most precious. And you know it the instant the elevator doors open onto the sixth floor.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Jan 27, 2002

Straight from the mothership

So, before I inundate you with a slew of new discoveries in the Shibuya-Ebisu-Daikanyama triangle, I must first pay homage to a funky little hole in the wall of seven years' standing -- Enjoy! House. It -- like 2626 (Flo Flo) -- sits within seconds of the Nishi-Ebisu fiveways. I can never make up my mind which of these two bars is my all-time Ebisu favorite, so I usually let my mood decide. If it's bourbon and blues I seek, 2626 wins. But if it's art and an edge that my soul requires, you'll find me at Enjoy! House -- along with Tokyo's next-generation artists, musicians and DJs.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Jan 13, 2002

A space-age think pad with the sweet smell of success

Each year begins with a clean sheet. Like the first page in a new diary, it is pure and unblemished. (The coffee-and-ink stains come later as we juggle our resolutions with the realities of life.) As such, the simple, white world of Bar Kapa seems an appropriate place to start. Even after two years of operation, it appears pristine and untouched -- as if detached from time. It is stylish and very adult. But it is not the kind of place one would go to alone.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Jan 6, 2002

Daybreak in the garden of Any and Yappy . . .

By the time you read this, Tokyo will be back to business after the New Year's break and the people and traffic will have returned to choke the city's streets. But the pollution that hangs like a lid over the greater metropolis will take a few days longer to return. Blue is the color of the New Year sky in Tokyo. It is also the favorite color of Any, the owner of Blue Garden, which remained open every night (including Jan. 1) throughout the break. Any, like me, wouldn't dream of leaving the city during o-shogatsu.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Dec 30, 2001

Party on, to the break of the new dawn

I was going to make just one recommendation for New Year's Eve -- the countdown party at Milk, a freestyle club in Ebisu. I have had a couple of great New Year's Eves there -- including one special moment making mochi (traditional rice cakes) as the first tendrils of dawn crept across the sky in the year 2000. I wasn't in the mood for a big party; however, hammering at gooey rice balls was a perfect match.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Dec 23, 2001

Finding the Christmas spirit (and ale)

Christmas was once a lonely business for an expat in Japan. With no holiday, no family and everyone who could manage it having already left town, it was downright dismal -- even for a seasoned Japan-hand.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Dec 16, 2001

Get high on romance this Christmas Eve

Christmas used to be a nonevent in Japan. But, due to a variety of factors, suddenly Christmas Eve was up there with Valentine's Day as a romantic night for a hot date. And Santa's look was revamped for sexy young girls in need of a little red dress for the occasion.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Dec 9, 2001

Everything goes . . .

One night recently, after a rampage through Kabukicho, my friend Peter suggested a nightcap at a nearby kyaba-kura (cabaret club). But one, he said, with a difference -- namely, all the girls who work there are "new-halfs," or transsexuals. There was no need to blush or blink -- I had already been to Petit Chateau, Tokyo's most prestigious new-half club, which earned its reputation by hiring only the most beautiful Japanese "girls" (and by charging a flat 20,000 yen just to walk in!).

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Dec 2, 2001

You know you want it

Meet Carl X, a quiet, unassuming Englishman who, for 10 years, has been working the graveyard shift in the bowels of Roppongi and beyond. And -- as far as I can see -- has survived unscathed. Remember Gold in Shibaura, Tokyo's most famous and decadent club in the late '80s? Carl worked there. Remember the original Gas Panic, known to its habitues (including myself) as the "Red Door"? Carl worked there for seven years. And Gas Panic 9.9 (nine to nine). And Geronimos. And the list goes on . . .

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Nov 25, 2001

I'd like to teach the world to karaoke

If, like me, you cannot sing, karaoke is a curse. One of the first things I learned to say in Japanese was, "If I sing, all your customers will leave."

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Nov 18, 2001

Seriously, where are you?

Lately, I've found myself worrying about you. Yes, you -- my vicarious companions; my invisible tagalongs. You, who follow my adventures by remote control. You, whose presence is most notable by your absence. But that's not what's bothering me. It seems that your absence has also been noted in my absence, i.e., at all the little bars I have introduced along the way. I have yet to hear of a confirmed sighting of a new face found at the bar clutching a battered copy of the Sunday Japan Times. But, of course, you'd be too cool to do something as silly as that.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Nov 11, 2001

So a girl walks into this bar

You usually are taken to the best bars -- or you're told about them. You don't usually find one by walking down a random street -- especially a big street -- and lurching through the first open door you see.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Nov 4, 2001

Not just another hole in the wall

Our last stop in Golden Gai takes us in deep -- deep into its heart and soul, deep into its geographical center. This is where you'll find the crumbling cinder-block row houses, which once dominated the area, still clinging to the narrow alleys that zigzag through Golden Gai's core. Whereas Tre Tre and Krishna, the two bars previously reviewed, are atypical of most of the bars in the area, this stop is a classic -- holed up, as it is, in still-sturdy cinder block in the middle of its row.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Oct 28, 2001

The golden girls of Shinjuku

Last week I introduced Tre Tre -- a funky little hole-in-the-wall near the entrance to Golden Gai. Gaku, the master, has not only helped many new-generation barkeeps leverage their way into the area, he also knows all the coolest spots to drink. So, this week and next, we will stay in Golden Gai and sample two of Gaku's recommendations.

CULTURE / Music

Oct 28, 2001

He's not just your average Joe

By the time I finally managed to contact Joe Strummer for a phone interview, The Mescaleros were in Los Angeles. It was the last port of call on the American leg of their tour to promote their second album, "Global A Go-Go." They had already played the first of four gigs at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, and tickets to the last show were already sold out. Within the week (i.e., by the time you read this), they would be arriving in Japan.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Oct 21, 2001

This size fits all

West Shinjuku is a showcase of sleek, modern high-rises. East Shinjuku, by contrast, is a low-rise mishmash of department stores and restaurants, which are gradually replaced by movie theaters and hostess clubs the farther north one moves. And if you find yourself surrounded by street hawkers instead of shoppers, chances are you've hit Kabukicho.

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE

Oct 14, 2001

P-chan gets started under the right track

Have you ever seen the Woody Allen movie "Radio Days"? In it, Woody grows up with his family, living snug-as-bugs in a tiny room underneath the Big Dipper on Coney Island. Every time a roller coaster careens overhead, the walls shake and objects pogo off the tables. Of course, nobody notices. It was funny. And it's the only thing I remember about the movie.

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