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April 30, 2024
 

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BEST BAR NONE

LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Jan 6, 2002
Daybreak in the garden of Any and Yappy . . .
By the time you read this, Tokyo will be back to business after the New Year's break and the people and traffic will have returned to choke the city's streets. But the pollution that hangs like a lid over the greater metropolis will take a few days longer to return. Blue is the color of the New Year sky in Tokyo. It is also the favorite color of Any, the owner of Blue Garden, which remained open every night (including Jan. 1) throughout the break. Any, like me, wouldn't dream of leaving the city during o-shogatsu.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Dec 30, 2001
Party on, to the break of the new dawn
I was going to make just one recommendation for New Year's Eve -- the countdown party at Milk, a freestyle club in Ebisu. I have had a couple of great New Year's Eves there -- including one special moment making mochi (traditional rice cakes) as the first tendrils of dawn crept across the sky in the year 2000. I wasn't in the mood for a big party; however, hammering at gooey rice balls was a perfect match.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Dec 23, 2001
Finding the Christmas spirit (and ale)
Christmas was once a lonely business for an expat in Japan. With no holiday, no family and everyone who could manage it having already left town, it was downright dismal -- even for a seasoned Japan-hand.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Dec 16, 2001
Get high on romance this Christmas Eve
Christmas used to be a nonevent in Japan. But, due to a variety of factors, suddenly Christmas Eve was up there with Valentine's Day as a romantic night for a hot date. And Santa's look was revamped for sexy young girls in need of a little red dress for the occasion.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Dec 9, 2001
Everything goes . . .
One night recently, after a rampage through Kabukicho, my friend Peter suggested a nightcap at a nearby kyaba-kura (cabaret club). But one, he said, with a difference -- namely, all the girls who work there are "new-halfs," or transsexuals. There was no need to blush or blink -- I had already been to Petit Chateau, Tokyo's most prestigious new-half club, which earned its reputation by hiring only the most beautiful Japanese "girls" (and by charging a flat 20,000 yen just to walk in!).
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Dec 2, 2001
You know you want it
Meet Carl X, a quiet, unassuming Englishman who, for 10 years, has been working the graveyard shift in the bowels of Roppongi and beyond. And -- as far as I can see -- has survived unscathed. Remember Gold in Shibaura, Tokyo's most famous and decadent club in the late '80s? Carl worked there. Remember the original Gas Panic, known to its habitues (including myself) as the "Red Door"? Carl worked there for seven years. And Gas Panic 9.9 (nine to nine). And Geronimos. And the list goes on . . .
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Nov 25, 2001
I'd like to teach the world to karaoke
If, like me, you cannot sing, karaoke is a curse. One of the first things I learned to say in Japanese was, "If I sing, all your customers will leave."
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Nov 18, 2001
Seriously, where are you?
Lately, I've found myself worrying about you. Yes, you -- my vicarious companions; my invisible tagalongs. You, who follow my adventures by remote control. You, whose presence is most notable by your absence. But that's not what's bothering me. It seems that your absence has also been noted in my absence, i.e., at all the little bars I have introduced along the way. I have yet to hear of a confirmed sighting of a new face found at the bar clutching a battered copy of the Sunday Japan Times. But, of course, you'd be too cool to do something as silly as that.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Nov 11, 2001
So a girl walks into this bar
You usually are taken to the best bars -- or you're told about them. You don't usually find one by walking down a random street -- especially a big street -- and lurching through the first open door you see.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Nov 4, 2001
Not just another hole in the wall
Our last stop in Golden Gai takes us in deep -- deep into its heart and soul, deep into its geographical center. This is where you'll find the crumbling cinder-block row houses, which once dominated the area, still clinging to the narrow alleys that zigzag through Golden Gai's core. Whereas Tre Tre and Krishna, the two bars previously reviewed, are atypical of most of the bars in the area, this stop is a classic -- holed up, as it is, in still-sturdy cinder block in the middle of its row.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Oct 28, 2001
The golden girls of Shinjuku
Last week I introduced Tre Tre -- a funky little hole-in-the-wall near the entrance to Golden Gai. Gaku, the master, has not only helped many new-generation barkeeps leverage their way into the area, he also knows all the coolest spots to drink. So, this week and next, we will stay in Golden Gai and sample two of Gaku's recommendations.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Oct 21, 2001
This size fits all
West Shinjuku is a showcase of sleek, modern high-rises. East Shinjuku, by contrast, is a low-rise mishmash of department stores and restaurants, which are gradually replaced by movie theaters and hostess clubs the farther north one moves. And if you find yourself surrounded by street hawkers instead of shoppers, chances are you've hit Kabukicho.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Oct 14, 2001
P-chan gets started under the right track
Have you ever seen the Woody Allen movie "Radio Days"? In it, Woody grows up with his family, living snug-as-bugs in a tiny room underneath the Big Dipper on Coney Island. Every time a roller coaster careens overhead, the walls shake and objects pogo off the tables. Of course, nobody notices. It was funny. And it's the only thing I remember about the movie.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Oct 7, 2001
On till the break of dawn
In clubland, regular openings and closings are a given. Bars, on the other hand, live by different rules -- longevity is proportional to the dedication of their creators. In Tokyo, a hybrid type of nightspot has evolved (and multiplied, because they fit well in the big city). You could call them mini-clubs, but that sounds too grand. And, hence, they are usually called DJ bars. You can sit, or you can dance. What you can't have is much room to move. Even if a space is bigger than a matchbook and smaller than a breadbox, in goes a DJ bar and out goes a sign. But, until recently, they had the life-expectancy of an insect.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Sep 30, 2001
As fate would have it
I love Tokyo. It is the most convenient city in the world. These days, you can get almost anything you want -- anywhere, anytime (except public transport after midnight). But first, you must find it in this chaotic city that sprawls through 23 wards -- each with its own urban hub and maze of back alleys.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Sep 23, 2001
Getting lost in the Shibuya triangle
When railways and expressways are carved through an existing urban grid, awkwardly shaped scraps of land are often left in their wake. In central Tokyo, if the fragment is big enough for a single room and a stairwell, something will be built. Architects need to think both laterally and vertically to capture precious space. The Hayakawa family was lucky. They ended up with a tidy triangle in the heart of Shibuya. And they were even luckier to have an architect as a son.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Sep 16, 2001
Nothin' but the big city blues
Kiki's Pub is a tiny blues bar tucked in behind Exit 1 of Toranomon Station. For 16 years, it has hugged the edge of a small cluster of nomiya (drinking spots) stranded between big streets and surrounded by homogenous rows of office blocks. When I called for directions, I was told to find the #10 Mori Building, but in this kind of identi-kit neighborhood, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Sep 9, 2001
Poetry in motion
"On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair . . ."
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Sep 2, 2001
The mellow punk
Tatsuya Ishii cuts a trim figure in his mid-30s. To look at him now, it is hard to believe that in his mid-teens he had a complex because of his weight. It was back then that he first heard of the Sex Pistols, after his classmate Soma played him the Sid Vicious version of "My Way."
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Aug 26, 2001
Bring it on home
O-bon is a mysterious Japanese holiday, which falls somewhere between the beginning and middle of August, as determined by the heaves and sighs of the cosmos each year. It is said to be a time when the spirits of one's ancestors return to roost (especially if one leaves a strategically placed eggplant near one's home).
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Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
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Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
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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.
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