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May 01, 2024
 

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BEST BAR NONE

Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Dec 23, 2005
Plenty of ways to howl in the new year
Once again, it is time to make that all-important decision about where to spend the magic midnight moment when the calendar starts anew. According to the Chinese zodiac, the cock will pass his hat on to the dog. And, as usual, there are several options for parties where, this year, you can let out a few deep woofing howls to celebrate the dawn of a new year . . .
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Nov 25, 2005
Put on your party hats
Welcome to CoZmo, a cafe and bar on the edge of Shibuya where it abuts Aoyama. And meet Ronna Wagenheim, its creator, proprietor, head chef and host. With the assistance of only one hand on deck, the charming Junella Hidaka, Ronna opens her hip retreat every night to escapees from the madness down the hill in Shibuya proper.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Oct 28, 2005
The velvety allure of Aoyama
Aoyama is full of small, high-end hideaways where service is delivered in studied silence and conversations are reduced to a whisper.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Sep 23, 2005
Still best buzz in shitamachi
Any address that begins 1-1-1 is, by my reckoning, pretty impressive. It means that the building located there was the first one on the first block developed in the first district of that area. Kamiya Bar, a legendary bar and restaurant, secured the 1-1-1 address in Asakusa when it opened 125 years ago. It is located in Taito Ward, one of a handful of Tokyo's northeastern wards that span either side of the Sumida River where Tokyo first took root as a city.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Jul 22, 2005
Do you want it soft or natural?
Aoyama is a breeding ground for night culture. It's as if someone dropped an extremely virulent strain of lounge-bar.alt in the area and it went berserk. Almost every time you round a corner, there's yet another stylish light-box sign marking the entrance of another chic new hideaway (some don't even have signs). But Aoyama is also a graveyard for experiments gone wrong. They often disappear as quickly as they come.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Jun 24, 2005
So you want to be a rock 'n' roll star?
Forget karaoke. Why sing along to an "empty orchestra" (which is what karaoke means in Japanese) when you could be the star -- center stage -- fronting your own live band? I am sure that many people who have perfected their "empty" performances must have dreamed of taking it a step further.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
May 27, 2005
A rock 'n' roll heart
Rock 'n' roll will never die. The sound may have mutated with each passing generation to create a variety of strains: alternative, progressive, metal, punk, noise, grunge. But it's the same 4:4 beat that drives them all and syncs our pulse to the rhythm.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Apr 22, 2005
Trilogy in a triangle
In general, pre-bubble nightlife in Tokyo was rather dull. In the early 1980s, a Saturday night out in Shinjuku or Roppongi meant jockeying for space in a crowded disco with packs of Japanese intent on line dancing in front of mirrors. There were a few alternative bars scattered in and around Aoyama, but even the cool people you met were just that -- cool, or that is, mostly afraid of being seen as uncool. Either way, it came down to image.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Mar 25, 2005
Chummy in the Chome
Shinjuku Ni-chome is still alive and thriving as the headquarters for Tokyo's gay bar scene. Unlike other party centers in Tokyo, I wouldn't say much has changed of late in the Chome, as the area is usually called by those who frequent it. No one ever calls it Shinjuku Ni-chome because that would be too much of a bust -- at work or out with coworkers.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Feb 25, 2005
A reason to be happy: Spike Bar in Shibuya
Shibuya is now headquarters for Tokyo's cool party crowd. In the last six years or so, countless little bars have set up shop and made themselves part of the night circuit around the station. Whether along Miyamasuzaka toward Aoyama, up Dogenzaka toward Daikanyama or south along the Yamanote tracks toward Ebisu -- the area is a patchwork of funky little bars and cafes that stay open late and cater to drinkers with a discerning ear for music.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Jan 28, 2005
Way off the main drag
Amaranth Lounge is a word-of-mouth bar. But when my friend told me about this place on Namikibashi off Meiji-dori, not far from Shibuya, that looked like the lounge from the dream sequences in David Lynch's classic TV series "Twin Peaks," I think he got a bit of a shock at the speed with which I said, "Let's go." Once there I found that all Amaranth Lounge needed was a checkered floor and a dwarf waiter to make it complete. Otherwise, the scene is set.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Dec 24, 2004
The rundown of the big countdowns
Another year has whizzed on by and the silly season is upon us again. Those of you who haven't yet had enough of overeating and overdrinking might find some of the Christmas dinner options of interest. Otherwise, hold off on the food, tighten that belt and get ready to dance in the New Year.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Nov 26, 2004
Where creative juices flow in Tokyo
Time Magazine recently proclaimed SuperDeluxe, a gallery and lounge space near Roppongi, as one of the best 100 spots in Asia. When it comes to Tokyo venues, I'd put it in my top three. But SuperDeluxe is no overnight sensation. It is a rare flower that has been skillfully nurtured since its seeds were first sown five years ago at the original Deluxe in the Azabu area.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Oct 22, 2004
Born to be wild . . . in moderation
I know what bikers look for in a bar. Though I've never been a rider myself, I did spend 10 years tooling around Tokyo on the back of my Japanese boyfriend's 1977-78 FLH custom shovelhead Harley-Davidson. In fact, we met in Bar Aoyama, which he and one of his Harley-riding buddies used to frequent because it opens right onto the street with ample parking for bikes in front, meaning that he and his friend could easily check on their bikes. Theft of multimillion-yen bikes is even more prevalent in Tokyo these days.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Sep 24, 2004
Hiding in the heart of Babylon . . .
Six is the number of trees in Roppongi (the kanji for the area literally reads "six trees"). Three sixes is the number of the beast, as everyone knows. And I've often thought that if you tripled the amount of mayhem to be found in Roppongi on any given night, you'd have a rough approximation of hell.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Aug 27, 2004
Nice-guy DJ spins it nasty
Every week for the past eight years, I have compiled a weekly club listing for an online infozine called Tokyo Q ( www.tokyoq.com ). For the first few years I had to walk around and collect fliers to generate my data. But these days, organizers use the Web to get the word out and I can now simply surf around. No fuss, no paper.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Jul 23, 2004
Fuji Rock's nightlife takes it off the scale
A good three-point formula to apply when reviewing a bar is to consider 1) the setting, 2) the people and 3) the music. These are the main ingredients that best sum it up and measure its potential. Some places score higher on some counts than they do on others, but the nightlife at the Fuji Rock Festival busts the Richter scale on all three. I should know: I've been every year since it began in 1997 and partied till dawn at most of them. It's hard not to.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Jun 25, 2004
Putting a bit of Color into the Meguro scene
Like Nakameguro 10 years ago, Meguro proper is one of those areas that has been quietly amassing bars and nightlife options over the last few years. When I first heard that Color, a multilevel restaurant and bar complex, had opened just down the hill from Meguro Station, I wasn't surprised. I was, however, expecting it to be a big place -- a towering beacon in the night, like the legendary multilevel club Gold in Shibaura in the early '90s.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
May 28, 2004
Rockin' till dawn in the heart of suburbia
Kichijoji is a good 20 minutes west of Shibuya on an express train, which places it smack dab in the middle of Tokyo's suburban belt. As such, it's the last place one would think of finding a bar dedicated to rock culture -- let alone one with a pedigree spanning a quarter of a century and with a provocative name like Bar Jap (only a local could get away with calling a bar that).
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Apr 23, 2004
Jazz retreat for night and day
Volontaire is a soothing retreat for jazz lovers that has stood its ground for the last three decades in Harajuku -- a neighborhood where bars change like the season's fashions. In Yuri Sakanoue's 27 years behind the counter, she has seen them all come and go. Unmoved, she has steadfastly maintained her hideaway from the mundane and the frivolous.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Yen rebounds strongly after first slide past ¥160 since 1990
The yen dropped to ¥160.245 per dollar on Monday before heading into the other direction to ¥155.01 amid speculation of an intervention by Japanese currency authorities.
JAL cancels international flight after captain gets drunk at Dallas hotel
A Japan Airlines' flight from Dallas to Tokyo was canceled last week after its captain got drunk at a local hotel.
Golden Week crowds greeted with high temperatures as holiday period kicks off
The departure lobby for domestic flights is crowded with travelers at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Saturday, the first day of this year's Golden Week holidays.
India seen overtaking Japan in nominal GDP in 2025
The skyline of central Mumbai's financial district
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.
Casa del Cibo: A thriving jewel born from Tohoku’s harsh past
When chef Ryohei Ikemi moved to Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and opened Casa del Cibo in 2011, it was the first proper Italian restaurant in the city.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.

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