Tag - japanese-cuisine

 
 

JAPANESE CUISINE

Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / NATURE'S PANTRY
Apr 29, 2014
A natural miso and soy factory that is always full of beans
Although rice is certainly the king of Japanese food, soybeans are the queen. Small makers of miso, soy sauce and tofu dot the landscape of Japan, but blink once and you will notice that the local shops are closing up as supermarket culture takes over daily life.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / CULINARY TOOLBOX
Apr 29, 2014
How to sharpen your homemade sushi skills
"Why don't you come around to the other side of the counter?" sushi chef Junichi Onuki chirped from behind the bar. He laid down the sharp yanagi-ba knife he'd been using to slice fillets of sea bream and beckoned in a gesture of welcome.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 25, 2014
Bill Granger's reciprocal love affair with Tokyo eating
Over the past few years, several American-style pancake joints — Eggs n' Things and Cafe Kaila, for example — have washed up on Tokyo's shores. Now, the tide is going the other direction.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / EVERYMAN EATS
Apr 22, 2014
Japan's freshest ready meals can be found in the basement
If there's one thing all Japanese guidebooks, concierges and expats can agree on, it's that tourists from overseas should make an effort, at some point during their stay, to visit the basement food floors of a major department store.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE PERSISTENT VEGETARIAN
Apr 22, 2014
In search of the fruits of Okinawa's oceans
Seven years ago, I bit into a delicate variety of seaweed called umi-budō, or "sea grapes." I remember sampling a few dishes at Unjami, an Okinawan-style izakaya off Nakano Broadway in Tokyo (5-55-1 Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo; 03-5345-5836), but the umi-budō stood out as something special. These tiny,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Apr 22, 2014
Gohanya Isshin: a diverse menu topped by fries that wax poetic
Isshin is deceptively big, dimly lit and madly busy; but the staff are on their game. More impressive is that the kitchen produces such high-quality fare in such a demanding work environment.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Apr 22, 2014
Cafe Ibaraki Yu: Former bathhouse offers a bite of the old days
The city of Ibaraki in the north of Osaka is home to Tadao Ando's Church of the Light, a modernist concrete masterpiece. Out of the spotlight, another architect in Ibaraki has been quietly but busily breathing life into buildings whose glory days would otherwise be behind them. Cafe Ibaraki Yu might...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / JAPANESE KITCHEN
Apr 15, 2014
Springtime for bamboo
Few plants are as useful as bamboo. A member of the grass family, it is fast growing and very prolific given the right growing conditions, which makes it eco-friendly too.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 15, 2014
Butagumi Dining: Quality tonkatsu pork cutlets to eat and go
What's not to like about the original Butagumi? Tokyo's temple to high-end tonkatsu (deep-fried pork cutlets) really is the finest in town. Where else serves such beautiful cuts of premium pork — from hand-reared breeds of "heritage" pigs — and in such a classic setting?
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 15, 2014
Muto: Handmade soba noodles with their own Michelin star
Who would choose to become a teuchi soba specialist? Kneading and rolling the dough, cutting it by hand, then carefully cooking and serving the delicate buckwheat noodles — it's a long, laborious job to prepare a meal that can take mere minutes to consume.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 8, 2014
Sharpen your kitchen skills with No Recipes
The Internet has been good to Marc Matsumoto. In 2007 he started putting his recipes online while working full-time in marketing in New York. He watched traffic to his blog grow, interest percolate.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS
Apr 8, 2014
Inakatei: Local Kyoto cuisine heavy on the fish and veg
When faced with a six-page menu allied with a supplementary page loaded with specials and all in a language that makes less sense to you than abstract art, what do you do? Get up and leave is one answer, as proven by the nearby holidaying couple, American I assumed by accent and attire, who left shortly...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS
Apr 8, 2014
Elk: Who doesn't eat soup with their pancakes?
Here's an odd couple: soup and pancakes. But this is how Elk, a small but expanding chain of cafes, advertises itself. The day I ate at Elk the pancake crowd was definitely in the ascendancy; there were a few soup eaters like myself, but we were in the minority. And speaking of minorities, men were so...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / EVERYMAN EATS
Mar 25, 2014
Japanese baseball stadiums hit a B-kyū gourmet home run
Coming off the most exciting season in recent memory, Japanese baseball is flying high — in some cases, literally so. Star pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, who signed with the New York Yankees in the offseason after leading the Rakuten Eagles to the Japan Series title, traveled to his first Big Apple press...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE PERSISTENT VEGETARIAN
Mar 25, 2014
A veggie picnic under the cherry blossom
Hanami is synonymous with a picnic with friends, family or colleagues under the blooming cherry blossoms, and it is something of a rite of passage into spring. Picnics mean sharing food — so how is a vegetarian in Japan to navigate this social scene? Here are some simple yet impressive items you can...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Mar 25, 2014
La Tepparnya: Izakaya fare with a European twist
A few years back I spent an insufferable summer in an insufferable apartment (in a room as big as a shoebox), which I would rather forget than remember, in Juso, which is just beside the Yodo River in Osaka. Luckily, I found La Tepparnya, an izakaya that became my surrogate home. With good timing, I...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Mar 25, 2014
Sumo Cha-ya Terao: Spirit of sumo in every bowl
Chankonabe is wedded to sumo in the same way as whiskey is to the Wild West and cowboys; they're both fuel for fightin'. Terao Tsunefumi, the man behind this eponymous restaurant, is a well-respected sumo wrestler who had a career in the ring spanning 20 years, long by any measure in sports. For his...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / JAPANESE KITCHEN
Mar 18, 2014
Feed their tummies and minds with a back-to-school bentō
April marks the start of the school year in Japan. If you're a parent, this may mean that you're faced with the task of making bentō (boxed lunches) for the first time. While bentō are virtually a national institution that come in many formats and are enjoyed by almost everyone, making them for small...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 18, 2014
Ajisen: Seasonal seafood and more in Tsukishima
There are many reasons for heading across the Sumida River to Tsukishima. Most of them involve monja, those griddle-splattered, dogs-dinner "pancakes" that are Tokyo's unconvincing answer to the okonomiyaki of western Japan. The one blessed anomaly is Ajisen.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 11, 2014
Answer the kitchen's call with a casual cookery course
While economic growth remains slow, many restaurants are feeling the pinch, as customers choose to stay home and cook in order to save money.

Longform

Construction equipment sits idle in a park near Shiba Toshogu shrine in Tokyo's Minato Ward. While Japan has a history of treating its trees with reverence, green coverage is said to be lacking in most of the major cities.
Do Japan's trees no longer occupy the sacred space they used to?