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November 22, 2024
 

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Angela Erika Kubo
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KONBINI WATCH
Jul 1, 2014
Refreshing summer drink repackaged as a chocolate
One of the best beverages to combat this sticky weather is Kirin Sekai no Kitchen's Salty Lychee drink, which is purported to replenish the minerals and fluids sweat out in Japan's horribly humid summers. And now, in partnership with Glico, Kirin has released a chocolate version (¥138), available in...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jun 26, 2014
Beer garden season begins with a hearty 'kanpai'
When the first Biergarten (beer gardens) started popping up in Germany's Bavarian region in the late 19th century, who would've thought that they would one day come to represent summer in Japan. Well, I guess it's not that unbelievable.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / DESSERT WATCH
Jun 24, 2014
Cupcakes and other treats make Magnolia Bakery worth lining up for
The newly opened Omotesando branch of New York's Magnolia Bakery sells fresh cupcakes topped with a generous dollop of sweet buttercream frosting — a welcome reward after the long, long lines. The mini key lime cheesecake (¥880), baked with a graham cracker crust, and the chain's popular banana pudding...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO BAR ADVENTURE
Jun 17, 2014
Hack your way into a computerized cocktail
While some bars have live music to bring in customers, newly opened Hackers Bar in Tokyo's Roppongi district holds live computer coding events to bring in the programmers.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KONBINI WATCH
Jun 17, 2014
Red Bull cheers on Japan's Samurai Blue
While it may be coincidental that a limited number of Red Bull's The Blue Edition (¥206) drinks were out in convenience stores just as the World Cup kicked off last week, you can feel as if you're showing your colors and supporting Samurai Blue as you gulp down this blueberry-flavored energy drink....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / DESSERT WATCH
Jun 10, 2014
A chocolate ice cream dessert you may never forget
Eating Avalanche (¥1,350) at the Marunouchi Ozao branch of Belgian patisserie Debailleul is like falling in love. You can't get the treat off your mind and the silly grin off your face. As bitter hot chocolate is poured onto it, the spherical chocolate shell melts and crumbles away like an avalanche,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO BAR ADVENTURE
Jun 3, 2014
Drinking with the dead at Tokyo's zombie bar
Once a month, Night Gallery Cafe Crow in Roppongi becomes a horror scene straight out of a George A. Romero film, as zombies descend upon the small venue. For more than two years, zombie performance unit Zombiena has been renting out the place every last Sunday from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. to hold what it calls a Zombie Bar.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KONBINI WATCH
Jun 3, 2014
A delicious treat, if you can find it
In the seven months since its release, over 3.45 million F Style Mochi Ponyo treats have been sold in Three-F convenience stores, and they have become a trending topic of discussion on Twitter. Mochi Ponyo are custard-filled sweets wrapped in soft pastry made of rice flour. Expect to have a hard time...
Japan Times
CULTURE
May 31, 2014
Essential summer festivals 2014
A summer without festivals simply wouldn’t be a proper summer in Japan, so now that the humidity has returned, it’s time to slop on an extra layer of sunscreen and line up some outdoor activities.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / DESSERT WATCH
May 27, 2014
Colombin's matcha-flavored sweets
Colombin, which was founded in 1924 and boasts of being the first provider of authentic French sweets in Japan, is putting a Japanese twist on traditional French goodies with the release of bright green, matcha-flavored sweets in select shops until June 26.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / DESSERT WATCH
May 22, 2014
Animal cupcakes too cute to resist
One Fairycake Fair cupcake may be too small to satiate real hunger, but when it comes to the amount of frosting it'll have on it, you can count on it being generous. Fairycake Fair makes a series of cakes shaped like animals from the wild. For ¥460, you can get your hands on a panda one, which is topped...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO BAR ADVENTURE
May 20, 2014
Mitaka's 3 Stories is a birthplace of new tales
They say that when you enter a good bar you should bring with you an anecdote that you share with the bartender or another customer sitting at the bar, who, in turn, would also have a story to exchange. By the end of the night, after a bottle of whiskey to loosen the tongue and a few laughs, a new story...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KONBINI WATCH
May 20, 2014
Vegetable ice cream — not as awful as it sounds
Frozen vegetables usually bring to mind prepackaged frozen chunks of carrot and broccoli meant to be heated up and served with chicken or steak. Haagen-Dazs, though, proved that image wrong with the release of carrot- and tomato-flavored ice creams (¥284) last week. Cherry and orange flavors mask the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
May 13, 2014
You don't have to visit France to get buttered up
In most Japanese supermarkets, sweet cream butter, or muhakkō batā dominates the shelves, but in recent years cultured butter, hakkō batā — a type of butter common in continental Europe — can be found in upscale supermarkets such as Seijo Ishii, due to the popularity of Echire butter, a French...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
May 1, 2014
A golden time to dine outdoors
Now is the golden season in Tokyo: balmy days, mellow temperatures, low humidity and no mosquitoes. There's nothing better than a nice, leisurely (and maybe even boozy) lunch outside — dinner, too, as long as you bring a warm jacket or throw.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
May 1, 2014
Will Tokyo go nuts for frozen yogurt?
Frozen yogurt is taking off in Tokyo as a healthy alternative to ice cream in an effort to beat the heat. Made from milk instead of cream, frozen yogurt packs far less fat and more nutrients. Woodberry's uses freshly homemade fermented yogurt and fruits straigh from the farm. A limited-edition passion...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 29, 2014
The bread that thinks its a pancake
AntenDo bakeries throughout Tokyo are now selling what the company calls Hotcake Pan (¥210) — sweet bread in a baking cup filled with vanilla-bean custard and topped with a thick square of butter. The bread comes with a plastic drop filled with pure Canadian maple syrup. Heat the bread in the microwave...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / DESSERT WATCH
Apr 22, 2014
Get in line for Japan's latest Cronut homage
Tokyo may not have a branch of Dominique Ansel, but it does have a Japanese answer to the New York bakery's famous Cronut. The next time you're waiting for a friend in front of Shinjuku's Alta building, grab the titular snack of Croissant Taiyaki (¥210), comprising sweet bean filling wrapped with a...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KONBINI WATCH
Apr 15, 2014
M&M's get fruity with new Raspberry flavor
A new flavor of one of America's best-selling candies has just hit Japanese convenience stores. You can now pop white, light pink and dark pink raspberry-flavored M&M's (¥100) into your mouth. The candies are cute, but might be a bit too sweet and artificial-tasting for those who prefer something subtler....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO BAR ADVENTURE
Apr 15, 2014
A boozy round of beer pong hits the spot
Long associated with college frat parties, beer pong is now mainstream in the United States. Although the game — which requires a long table, a pair of ping pong balls and several plastic cups, each filled with an inch of beer — is difficult to talk a Japanese pub owner into replicating, there are...
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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