Melinda Joe is an American journalist in Tokyo. A certified wine and sake professional, she writes about Japanese drinks in her Kanpai Culture column for The Japan Times and blogs at tokyodrinkingglass.blogspot.com.
For Melinda Joe's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Sachio Egawa is a Renaissance man of sorts. A spry 68-year-old with a jokey manner and a full head of black hair, he raises his own cows, grows rice and cultivates giant yamame trout in a pond on his farm in northern Iwate Prefecture. In ...
Eco-friendly Basque chef on the opening of his new Tokyo eatery.
Early one September morning, Ana Ros, Slovenia's most famous chef, is receiving a crash course in Japanese seafood at Tsukiji fish market. At one stall, she samples two kinds of sea urchin from Hokkaido, along with an assortment of shellfish that includes ishigakegai, a large ...
Japanese chef Yoji Tokuyoshi has been pushing boundaries with cuisine that reflects his philosophy of intercultural cross-pollination since 2015 — the year he opened his eponymous restaurant, Tokuyoshi, in Milan. A native of Tottori Prefecture, the 39-year-old chef left Japan for Italy at the age ...
Few had heard of new German cuisine when twin chefs Thomas and Mathias Suhring began serving elevated takes on kazespatle (Bavarian pasta made with cheese) and smoked trout at their restaurant, Suhring, in Bangkok, at the start of last year. Less than a year after ...
On a steamy June afternoon, the apple trees in the Tsugaru region of Aomori Prefecture are laden with fruit. Now, the young apples are hard green spheres the size of golf balls, but come autumn they will be plump, sweet and ready for harvest. While ...
Opinionated About Dining founder on his musical background, algorithms and what makes a decent restaurant critic.
Around the world, the sound of popping corks brings just one thing to mind — Champagne. However, a new organization of sake producers is working to tweak that image. Launched last year, the Japan Awasake Association consists of nine brewers who are committed to raising ...
On a cool afternoon in mid-April, Israeli chefs Yair Yosefi and Omer Ben-Gal, co-founders of Brut Wine Bar in Tel Aviv, examine a shipment of fresh silver-skinned sawara (Spanish mackerel) from Tottori Prefecture in a tiny kitchen on Cat Street — in the middle ...
Entrepreneur Nao Kohara sits at a table in his favorite neighborhood bar, checking emails on his laptop computer and sipping a glass of sake. Some of his brightest business ideas have been hatched over a few drinks — including the concept behind his latest venture, ...
