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April 30, 2024
 

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BEST BAR NONE

Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Mar 26, 2004
Meet the Office manager
Everybody knows about Office in Kita-Aoyama -- the funky little fifth-floor, no-elevator hangout with a photocopier next to the DJ booth. But few people have had the pleasure of meeting Sadahiro Nakamura. Then again, you may have met him and just not realized that he was the man behind the scene and proprietor of a burgeoning night empire. His boyish appearance belies his 33 years and success in business -- as I found out recently, when we met for a chat.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Feb 27, 2004
Hanging heavy in the sumo heartland
For Tokyoites, Ryogoku is synonymous with sumo. And, until a few months ago, that was all it meant to me. Ryogoku is two stops east of Akihabara on the JR Sobu line and is also accessible via Asakusabashi-Ryogoku Station on the Oedo subway line.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Jan 23, 2004
Spinning funky music on Naeba's Snodeck
Let me say right up front that I don't much care for snow. While Tokyo constantly disappoints by failing to deliver a white Christmas, that's about as far as my interest goes. And though I have enjoyed the thrills and spills of skiing a few times (before the advent of the snowboard, I admit), the experience was hardly enough to hook me. So believe me when I tell you that the only thing that lured me up to spend New Year's in Naeba, Niigata Prefecture, was the promise of finding a good bar.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Dec 26, 2003
Round 'bout midnight
It's that time of the year again, when everybody is steadily moving into party mode as the big countdown approaches. Some punters will simply be dancing in the streets to celebrate. Others will take to the expressways: Reportedly over 6,000 bosozoku (hot-rodders and hot-doggers on motorcycles) choked Tokyo's highways last New Year's Eve.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Nov 28, 2003
Happy Jack is right on target
In all my years in Tokyo, I have never before found a cool bar in Gotanda. Sure, I've happened on a few in and around Osaki and Meguro, the stops on either side on the Yamanote Line loop -- but never one in Gotanda itself.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Oct 24, 2003
A chill double-bill in the heart of Shibuya
When Matt Nieman and Greg Natali were kids growing up in Philadelphia, neither one of them could have imagined that they would end up living and running nightclubs in Tokyo.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Sep 5, 2003
Pastures new for The Pink Cow
Many of you may have been sad to hear that The Pink Cow was closing. Even though it only closed to relocate, the original Harajuku space had a quirky, living-room feeling that many will miss.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Aug 10, 2003
Up-tempo hangout just down the hill
Azabu Juban is a short stroll down the hill from both the new Roppongi Hills complex and Roppongi crossing. But whereas the new Mori complex has given Roppongi a bump up in the sophistication stakes, it merely adds to what is already on offer in Azabu Juban, which has long been the neighborhood of choice for more mature-minded inner-city habitues.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Jul 27, 2003
Yet another reason to head to Roppongi
Home is where the heart is, as they say. Well, the hottest new home for the after-office crowd in Roppongi, it would seem, is Heartland bar in the Roppongi Hills complex. This is where, as every evening unfolds, you will find a steady flow of both foreign and Japanese coworkers and friends dropping by for a drink or two after work. And come Friday night, the place gets mobbed. But why, I found myself wondering, is Heartland so popular?
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Jul 13, 2003
Out of the way, but never too far
After S'ayak has the disadvantage of being somewhat difficult to find. It is tucked away in a dark alley off a relatively well-patronized neighborhood shopping street lined with many cool little sake bars and eateries. You have to know it's there to find it.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Jun 27, 2003
Prepare for lift-off: destination, the stars
Having spent the best part of two decades prowling Roppongi at street level, my first visit to the Roppongi Hills Club felt like an out-of-body experience. Hovering an awesome 51 floors above the network of increasingly seedy bars below, my spirit could not help but feel elevated. The club is so far above ground, in fact, that I bumped my nose on the window when trying to spot Roppongi Crossing below.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Jun 1, 2003
Cool just around the corner
I held out no great hope for a positive outcome to a recent visit to the Ginza. Dante, the chef who some of you may remember from Tokyo Salon in the Vision Network complex in Omotesando, wanted me to come and taste his new Italian set dinner, which he has added to the menu at NB Club, a restaurant featuring live music. The place is huge, the food and music top-drawer, but the owners agreed -- it's a restaurant, not a bar.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
May 18, 2003
Palms Lounge -- they're coming to getcha
Sometimes life's a beach. And sometimes it's a lounge. Such is life for Seiji Endo, the twentysomething surfer who runs Palms Lounge.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
May 4, 2003
Diving into some deep blue soul
Eight years ago, there used to be a tiny but dead-cool soul bar called Gonbe in Todoroki, in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward. This area is better known as an upmarket residential neighborhood than as a place to find a hot little bar. Nevertheless, Gonbe was packed every night, but then, in a place that felt crowded with six customers, that wasn't too hard.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Apr 20, 2003
An aroma of l'amour at Le Faubourg
Le Faubourg is a stylish lounge bar in the fashionable Aoyama district of Tokyo. The area is to Tokyo what Madison Avenue is to New York. This is where you'll find showcase boutiques for famous Japanese designers, like Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto, as well as internationally renowned brands such as Luis Vuitton and Chanel.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Apr 6, 2003
Your passport to the Belgian brews
Belgium is a relatively small country and yet it boasts more specialist and boutique breweries than any other nation on earth. Tokyoites have, for more than a decade, been enjoying Belgium's finest at a handful of Belgian beer bars, like the original Brussels and more recent Belgo chains -- though, without exception, these bars are more personalized than the word "chain" suggests.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Mar 23, 2003
The secret life of Marc Romance
Marc Romance is my favorite alias for the master of Pousse Cafe, a stylish wine bar hidden away in Jiyugaoka. He has used many names, including Mac, Kota and the unlikely Alien J. Perkins -- most adopted for the convenience of his foreign friends but some, like the latter, as a nom de plume for writing music. But he was born Kotaro Honda, the son of a Japanese literature professor tenured at a Shikoku university. (And yes, this has earned him the nickname "Professor.")
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Mar 9, 2003
Women of all types get the golden touch
Gold Finger is a fantasy party for women -- and women only. The event remains faithful to the formula that the organizer, Chiga, first encountered 15 years ago at the Fridge in London.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Feb 23, 2003
Try to score a pint here
Sports bars and pubs were big business during the 2002 World Cup Soccer finals cohosted by Japan and South Korea. Many opened in Tokyo just in time to milk the influx of fans. But for the three partners who teamed up to create the Clubhouse in Shinjuku, the soccer was simply a bonus. Their target had been the kick-off of the 1999 Rugby World Cup.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Feb 9, 2003
Turning the heat waaaay up in Roppongi
If you've had enough chilling this winter and you could use a little heat, why not get down to La Rumba, Roppongi's latest Latin hangout? And you don't have to wait for the weekend. La Rumba offers dance classes most evenings till 9 p.m. -- an excellent way to warm up.
When will Japan intervene to support the yen?
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki has reiterated the government's readiness to take an appropriate action as the yen continues to slide against the U.S. dollar.
'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.
Raising kids in Japan as a single parent? It takes a village.
Making things work as a foreign, single mother in Japan isn't easy, but these tips and tricks can help you through the hardest parts.
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.
Man, 28, arrested in Okinawa over burned bodies found in Tochigi
Hikaru Sasaki enters the Metropolitan Police Department's Osaki police station in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward on Monday after being arrested on suspicion of disposing of two bodies found in Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture, earlier this month.
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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