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Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 25, 2003

Un Cafe: I'm falling in love again

Going back to favorite restaurants after a gap of several years is much like meeting up with an old flame after being out of touch for too long. Anticipation is likely to be tempered by a good measure of anxiety. How have they changed? What if they don't look so good any more, or they've gone to fat,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 18, 2003

Hachinoki Honten: On a higher plane

Spring is here -- time to head for the hills. And if you take the train south from Tokyo, the first topography of any significance you're likely to encounter will be that swathe of green that rings the genteel burg of Kamakura. A century or so ago, these hillocks were referred to (with no hint of irony)...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 21, 2003

Gonpachi: Elevated dining at this three-in-one

Nobody would claim that Shibuya is among the most attractive neighborhoods of this metropolis. And yet, as with so many other less than salubrious districts, when viewed at night from a suitable distance -- say 14 stories above the ground -- it does take on an undeniable glow that could almost be called...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 7, 2003

A slice of Spain to liven up Lent

Every year when carnival time rolls around, it's the Rio samba parade that hogs the limelight, along with Mardi Gras in New Orleans and similar festivities all around the Caribbean. But they still know how to celebrate the start of the Lenten season over there in Old Europe too. After all, that's where...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 14, 2003

Take your lover to Hevin and back

What is it about Japan and chocolate and Feb. 14? For the past two weeks and climaxing today, the entire nation -- or at least the female half of it -- has been engulfed in the annual chocomania. And, if anything, this year the Valentine's Day frenzy has reached new heights.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 31, 2003

Coca Restaurant: Fun food in funky retro style

There is precious little architecture left in central Tokyo these days that has any history attached to it. So when restaurants want to imbue their premises with a period feel, mostly they just have to fake it. The results can range from ersatz Edo-style castles to flimsy, film-set backdrops glorifying...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 24, 2003

Shilingol: From the Mongol steppes to Sugamo

A chill gale of change is gusting through the sumo world, all the way from Central Asia. The demise of the Takanohana era does not, of course, mean we will stop eating chanko nabe. However, in honor of the incipient arrival of the Asashoryu dynasty, we felt impelled to set off in search of Shilingol,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 13, 2002

Time to say arrivederci to the old-school cucina

Out with the old and in with the new. That's the prevailing state of the game in Tokyo's restless, ever-changing restaurant scene. Sometimes this can be exhilarating, as with the brilliant refurbishment of the top floors of the My City building in Shinjuku. Sometimes, though, the process can feel downright...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Nov 24, 2002

Old world brews for a new century

Belgians makes the finest, most complex beers in the world. There can be little argument about that. They've been perfecting the craft -- many would call it an art -- for centuries. But just because these brews have a tradition dating back to the era of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, that doesn't mean they...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Nov 3, 2002

We'll have 'the usual'

Comme d'habitude. As any linguist knows, that's French for "as usual." As the name of a restaurant, it conjures up images of a run-of-the-mill bistro with standard-issue checkered tablecloths. But the name is both modest and misleading, because Comme d'habitude in Kami-Meguro stands head and shoulders...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Oct 6, 2002

Iseya: Tempura with a tale to tell

Iseya is a diamond in the rough-and-ready neighborhood that lies to the north of Asakusa. Set between the sleazy, winking red lights of the Senzoku soaplands and the grim and grimy flophouses of San'ya, this is far from tourist territory. And Iseya is no tourist restaurant. But without doubt it's a shitamachi...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 4, 2002

Salsita: Just like they do it back in old Mexico

'The best Mexican food in town,' the hand-chalked sign outside Salsita proclaims. That's certainly a cocksure statement for a cantina of such modest dimensions. But, as we all know (in Japan better than anywhere else), when it comes to eating well, what matters is neither the size of the kitchen nor the length of the menu but quality, attention to detail and that plus-alpha personal touch. You'll find Salsita has that in spades.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 30, 2002

Even a sultan would approve

No matter their relative prowess on the soccer field, there can be no disputing which of the nations that reached the semifinal of the World Cup would deserve to be champions, were the title decided on culinary merit alone. With all respect to the gastronomy of Germany, Brazil and South Korea, none can...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 2, 2002

The slow train to France

To reach AOC Yoyogi entails an undemanding stroll down a narrow shotengai shopping street in one of those quiet, unexceptional parts of Tokyo you would never have recourse to visit in the normal run of affairs. It's only minutes away from the JR station, but far enough that you feel well removed from...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 7, 2002

Harmonie: Harmonizing great food in the key of fine wine

Keen-eyed Nishi Azabu-watchers will have noted the arrival of a whole slew of new restaurants in recent months. The influx has been especially noticeable on the southwest quadrant of the crossing known to old-timers as Kasumicho Crossing and to foreign punsters as Hobson's Choice.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 3, 2002

Substance with style on the side

Any fashion boutique worth its salt has a cafe attached these days. Offering cappuccinos and cheesecake is, after all, a good way to draw reluctant window-shoppers through the doors. Too often, though, style wins out over substance. The requisite ambience is installed along with the espresso machine,...
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 13, 2002

Matsugen: Noodles at the cutting edge of Azabu

To call Matsugen a new-wave soba shop would be misleading, since the noodles it rolls, cuts, cooks and serves are entirely traditional. But judge it on looks and attitude alone, and it belongs without question to the present century, not the last.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 6, 2002

Oh, what will they think of next?

It's never a good idea to start a new year by looking over your shoulder. But there's no harm in saluting the trends that have emerged over the past 12 months, especially if they represent a significant slippage in the gourmet zeitgeist. After all, yesterday's dabblings by the food fashionistas become...
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 30, 2001

Delicious plum choices from 2001

In a city the size of Tokyo, it is simply impossible to visit every single new restaurant or to keep track of changes at all the established places. For that reason, the Food File does not presume to assign year-end rankings or pronounce its best-of lists for the year, especially since, in the end, it...
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 23, 2001

A gift from the South of France

At this time of year, the frigid streets of Tokyo feel a very long way from the sun-baked hills and turquoise seas of the South of France. But they have cold weather down there too. And for that we should be thankful -- because if they didn't have winter, the local fisher-folk might never have developed...
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 16, 2001

Caffe Aromatica: The sweet smell of distinction

There's nothing new under the sun -- at least it often seems that way at Italian restaurants in Tokyo. This is not to deny that we are blessed with plenty of excellent cucina, just that too many of the places serving it look and feel like clones.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Nov 11, 2001

Kanetanaka-So: Modern kaiseki set on the right course

These are not the best of times for Tokyo's ryotei, those rarefied houses of inconspicuous consumption, whose prime purpose is as venues for wining and dining, mutual back-scratching and political intrigue. With captains of industry cutting back on expense accounts, and Nagata-cho's mandarins under increasing...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Nov 4, 2001

Sushi that fits the bill in attitude and price

Shinbotchi's take on the ancient art of sushi is much the same approach that the rag trade of back-street Harajuku adopts toward the world of fashion.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Oct 14, 2001

The bistro jazzed up to perfection

It's a hard job, as they say -- not that we're complaining. But if there is a down side, it's that the Food File's constant, restless search for new foraging grounds makes it nigh on impossible for us to revisit any of our great new discoveries, let alone keep tabs on all those tried-and-true, all-time...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 19, 2001

Kao Tai: Getting down to the Thai essentials

You don't have to go far in Tokyo for good Thai restaurants these days. But when it comes to tracking down no-frills, down-home cooking -- the kind of simple snacks prepared by countless market stalls and sidewalk eateries in Bangkok -- then it pays to dig deep. Some of the best Thai street food is served...
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 29, 2001

Hong Hu Asian: The cafe of Asian delights

The idea of the Asian-themed izakaya, complete with basic hawker food and crass giant Buddhas, has been with us for several years now. But Hong Hu is surely the first place in Tokyo to reinterpret Southeast Asian street food in the guise of a sidewalk cafe-bistro.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 1, 2001

In praise of traditional values

Rustic, welcoming, friendly, relaxed -- these are not the adjectives you associate most readily with Daikanyama these days. Long since gutted as a neighborhood, there's precious little sense of community left among all the brand-name boutiques and slick, designer restaurants that have taken over the...
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 10, 2001

Zetton: A buzz that can't be resisted

Call it what you like -- drawing power, charisma, sex appeal or the Koizumi quality -- new restaurants need that extra something to succeed, no less than populist politicians with big, Beethoven-look hair. Zetton, the hot new place just up from Shibuya-bashi in Ebisu, has just the right sort of buzz....
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 15, 2001

Yamato: Notes from the underground

Call it the B1 syndrome, if you will, or perhaps the bargain-basement phenomenon. But the sad truth is, you don't dine well at the bottom of a building.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 8, 2001

Pizza, extra artistry, hold the delivery

Sometimes the craving strikes and second-best just won't do.

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes