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April 30, 2024
 

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Alex Dutson
For Alex Dutson's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Jul 10, 2015
Britain's food revolution hits Tokyo
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that, generally speaking, English meals are bad." So begins Nozomu Hayashi's best-selling 1991 treatise on British food, "Igirisu wa Oishi" ("England is Delicious").
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Jun 5, 2015
The best places in Tokyo to taste Vietnam in a baguette
Remember that rumor about “Mama” Cass Elliot from the Mamas and Papas? The one about how she died in bed while munching on a sandwich? I heard that as a child and for years I took it as a cautionary tale about bedtime snacking, or else as evidence that fate has a rather whimsical sense of humor. It would serve a third purpose equally well: as a warning for those about to indulge in Vietnamese banh mi — the hulking behemoths of the sandwich world.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
May 1, 2015
Diving into the potent flavors of Japan's Iberian Peninsula cuisine
The seaside town of San Sebastian, in Spain's Basque Country, is well known as a crucible of culinary experimentation. It's a town where bars offering pinchos (small snacks) groan under the weight of vast spreads of braised beef cheek, hake throats laced with shouty salsa verde and blood puddings spiked with apple and raisins. A place where dangling bellota hams perfume the air with acorns and where bills can be tallied up in shirt stains just as well as they can in euros.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Apr 3, 2015
Japan's French bistro dining keeps the focus on the food
Each year, approximately 20 Japanese tourists are struck down by a rare and mysterious disorder.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Mar 3, 2015
Swedish cuisine: so much more than meatballs
Some Swedish delicacies, such as lutefisk (dried cod treated with lye), attract comments that are less than flattering. And when I say less than flattering, I mean downright slanderous. "Reminiscent of the afterbirth of a dog, or the world's largest chunk of phlegm," is one immortal line delivered by none other than U.S. author Garrison Keillor.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Feb 10, 2015
Singapore food fling provides 'messy and satisfying' feast
It's Friday night and I'm staring death in the face. The face in question happens to belong to a red snapper, and it's peeking out from the dark depths of powerful tamarind broth shimmering with crimson chili oil.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Jan 6, 2015
Embark on a Peruvian adventure without boarding a flight
Sitting in the wood-clad, dimly lit dining room of the Miraflores restaurant, I begin to feel like I'm planning a year volunteering abroad. A glance at the Peruvian flag on the wall, the figurines on the bar counter and the map plastered across the door, and I imagine gleefully imposing myself on whichever rural village most needs a new school or well. My mind soars. For a fleeting moment I'm perched atop Macchu Pichu, legs tucked up to my chest against the bracing wind, surveying the sun-soaked vistas.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Dec 2, 2014
Finding comfort in a Belgian bowl
The mercury has dropped and the nights are getting longer. As the temperature plummets so does the need for culinary sophistication. Filigree garnishes, amusingly carved vegetables and light bonito broths frankly no longer cut it. To put it another way: December is less about yuzu-infused shoyu, and more about meat-pie-infused face.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Nov 11, 2014
The best wine this side of Burgundy comes from . . . Canada?
Jamie Paquin is a man who likes a challenge. Three years ago, the 42-year-old Ontario native opened Heavenly Vines, the world's very first all-Canadian wine store, in the leafy backstreets of Ebisu. Day in day out, he's a tireless champion for what Matt Kramer of U.S. magazine Wine Spectator has called "the world's least-known great wine zone."
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Nov 4, 2014
Pizza the way they make it in Naples — more or less
With pizza, as with many things in life, simple is often the best. And it doesn't get any more minimal than a true pizza Napoletana.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Sep 30, 2014
Searching out the subtle but scorching spices of India
Turbaned and bejeweled Kashmiri princes recline on soft nan pillows, sipping chai as servants scamper over rugs of a luxuriant weave and between silk curtains rippling and fluttering in the light breeze of a Srinagar palace pavilion.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Sep 2, 2014
Hankering for the grills and thrills of Greek cuisine
Few things in this world are more pleasurable than sinking your teeth into heavily herbed, charcoal-grilled paidakia, the fabled lamb chops adored and revered by the Greeks.
When will Japan intervene to support the yen?
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki has reiterated the government's readiness to take an appropriate action as the yen continues to slide against the U.S. dollar.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Raising kids in Japan as a single parent? It takes a village.
Making things work as a foreign, single mother in Japan isn't easy, but these tips and tricks can help you through the hardest parts.
Yen rebounds strongly after first slide past ¥160 since 1990
The yen dropped to ¥160.245 per dollar on Monday before heading into the other direction to ¥155.01 amid speculation of an intervention by Japanese currency authorities.
Man, 28, arrested in Okinawa over burned bodies found in Tochigi
Hikaru Sasaki enters the Metropolitan Police Department's Osaki police station in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward on Monday after being arrested on suspicion of disposing of two bodies found in Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture, earlier this month.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.
Casa del Cibo: A thriving jewel born from Tohoku’s harsh past
When chef Ryohei Ikemi moved to Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and opened Casa del Cibo in 2011, it was the first proper Italian restaurant in the city.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.

Podcast

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.
[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Longform

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.
Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Leading Japan’s sustainability from Tokyo
Leading Japan’s sustainability from Tokyo

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