Review excerpt: Henry's Burger Akihabara has developed a 100-percent wagyu burger that is rich, juicy and distinctively different from any other in town, especially the recent wave of premium American chains.

Review excerpt: The pork at The Good Vibes oozes rich, spicy sauce and is loaded up with chili pickles and lettuce. The chicken has a crunchy genmai (brown rice) coating and comes with grated cabbage and a slather of teriyaki sauce.

Surugaya Kahei, run by a Shizuoka fish company, boasts 60 options. Many are variants on the standard squid guts, seasoned with zesty yuzu or spicy kimchi, for example. Others include katsuo (skipjack tuna), scallop, zuwaigani (snow crab) or pricy sakuradai (sea bream).

I took one sip and was immediately comforted: Chabuton doesn't seem to be trying to imitate a meat-based broth at all, as I'd half expected, since this is a meat-centric restaurant. Instead, it has created an honest, decent vegetable soup as a base, almost ...