After living in France for nearly a decade, Toru Matsushita returned to his hometown of Osaka and took up where he left off in the French capital. Before long he was settled back into preparing and serving soba. On the surface it was a circuitous ...

The first time I had a Minoh beer was on a stool years ago at a makeshift bar out the front of its brewery in the affluent suburb of Osaka that gave the beer its name. Since then, the award-winning brewery has been transformed ...

A frequently overlooked aspect of kitchens in general is the importance of storage. In fact, most of the space in a kitchen is given over to the storage of utensils and equipment as well as the food itself. Japanese kitchens have some unique features in ...

Attached to the Lotteria fast-food restaurant in Nakano's Sun Road shopping street is a special stall selling a special bear-shaped treat. They make a taiyaki variant shaped like Lotte's famous Koara no Machi ("Koala's March") cookie snack, called "Koara no Machi Yaki." The regular ...

Biochemist Yuki Hanyu's vision for the future includes a supermarket that has plenty of meat, none of which has come from a farm. Instead, it has all been grown in a laboratory. Hanyu is the founder of Tokyo-based startup Shojinmeat Project, a team of volunteers ...

Seventeen students from the United States stare at a garden of eggplant. "You can take pictures, just don't touch anything," the group's translator informs them, most of whom are in their early 20s. A minute of silence passes as they gaze at the circular ...

As the city crow flies, it's just a short hop from the bustle and bright lights of Ginza to the laid-back, low-rise backstreets of Ningyocho. But once you're there, it can feel half a world away — especially when you arrive at Imahan. With its ...

Wagyu beef could hardly be hotter in Tokyo these days. The richly marbled meat from Japan's prize pampered cattle is drawing global gastronauts to some of the city's most exclusive and expensive venues, none more so than Wagyumafia. Whatever you think about the name — ...

Every evening at around 5:30 p.m. in Fukuoka, a curious transformation takes place along the city's main boulevards. Out of secluded parking lots and closed-off garages, wooden food carts emerge, pulled through the streets by their owners to selected locations across the city. Nakasu, Nagahama, ...

We've all been there — you're hungry, but don't want to cook. The idea of ordering a pizza is initially tempting, but what about all those calories? These are the dilemmas that haunt one's laziest nights. Now, however, Natural Lawson offers a pizza snack that ...

With cooler weather around the corner, our thoughts turn away from cold noodles and salads to autumn comfort foods like nimono, simmered dishes in a broth, usually a classic seaweed and dried fish-based dashi. One of the most comforting nimono is simmered kabocha squash, a ...

Tsugu is located a few corners from Shijo Karasuma, the main intersection in downtown Kyoto. That said, even when a digital map is just a tap away, finding it through the side streets may prove a little difficult, so look for a statue of ...