The Gion Matsuri came to a close at the end of July, but there's still time to enjoy one of the dishes most closely associated with that famous festival. Hamo, called dagger-tooth pike eel in English, has long been one of the Kansai region's summer specialities, especially in Kyoto, where ...
Most visitors to Kyoto rarely venture west of the Katsura River. On the face of it, the western tract of the city of Kyoto pales in comparison to Higashiyama in the east, which feels as though it could crumble under the weight of world ...
Kissaten Nasu is three separate but conjoined entities: As the name of the restaurant implies, it's a kissaten, a traditional cafe. But it's also a curry shop and a jazz cafe, and the master might just be one of the most dapper and suave ...
Despite falling sales in Japan, sake is experiencing an increase in popularity in Britain. The popularity seems to be reflected not only in brisk local sales but also in talk in the media that the Japanese rice wine may finally be entering the mainstream. According ...
Harajuku has gone gaga over food designed for Instagram. Walk down Takeshita Street and you'll probably see people snapping shots of giant, rainbow-colored cotton candy and the like. The latest entrant into this realm is Coisof, an ice cream store located on a side street ...
If not for a long-lost article extolling the virtues of Wild Turkey in the late 1980s, Yu Sumiyoshi might never have discovered whiskey. But a well-placed feature caught the 19-year-old Yu's attention and, after receiving his monthly salary, he headed to the city of ...
Tokyo is a tough place to open any business, especially your first restaurant. Along with kitchen skills and front-of-house nous, you need the right location, good connections and a strong underlying raison d'etre. A catchy name and some funky background music can't hurt either, ...
Tokyo has never been big on outdoors dining. Save for the old-school beer gardens that mushroom in midsummer, there are too few opportunities in the inner city to drink, snack and while away the time al fresco. At least there's Commune 2nd. Following its predecessor, ...
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 ...
Japanese netizens have noticed something strange about Nissin's latest special edition of it's venerable Cup Noodle brand. The new Black Seafood variety features a white squid on the packaging — reflecting the use of said sea critter's ink in this item — surrounded by splotches ...
Milk production, which was essentially nil during the Edo Period (1603-1868), did not begin in Japan until the Meiji Era (1868-1912). But by 1975, there was already one dairy cow for every 62 Japanese people, and milk had been a standard part of school lunches ...
There are lots of good reasons for visiting Kamakura. It has temples, shrines and walks in the hills. You can windsurf, laze on the beach or just enjoy that rare sensation of having escaped the megalopolis. But dining out rarely comes high on the ...
It is all too easy to overlook Hanabi. Every day streams of visitors walk past this unprepossessing noodle joint without giving it a second look as they hike between the center of Kamakura and the Hase area and its famous Great Buddha. That's their ...
