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November 22, 2024
 

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Robbie Swinnerton
Robbie Swinnerton has been living, eating and writing about food in Tokyo for over 30 years. His column, Tokyo Food File, has run in The Japan Times since 1998.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 7, 2009
Surf Kamakura's spicy Asian turf
A chilled bottle of Singha beer forms a ring of condensation on the table. The heady aromas of fried garlic, lemongrass and curry spices waft from the kitchen in the corner of the wooden hut. Two waitresses gossip in Thai.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 17, 2009
Piazza pizza and sidewalk crepes
It took us more than six months to get around to checking out Eataly in Daikanyama. With a name like that, we still couldn't believe it was anything other than a gimmicky Italian food theme park. We're still not convinced, but it certainly boasts one of the most pleasant al fresco eating spots in the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 17, 2009
Cool out at Two Rooms in the sky
The good news: The rainy season is over. The bad news: The Great Heat is now upon us, blanketing the city. The only recourse: eat lightly, eat late and eat outside. Here are a few places where you are likely to find the Food File enjoying the night sky, cradling a glass in the cool of the evening with...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 3, 2009
Enoteca inspiration brings wine and food for Italophiles
Blink and you're likely to miss Enoteca Cricca as you walk past. It's one of those diminutive hole-in-the-wall restaurants that Tokyo does so well. With a low-budget, rustic interior — whitewashed walls, exposed brick and lots of simple, hand-finished woodwork — it's clearly a labor of love and enthusiasm....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 3, 2009
Coolie's Creek: Up in the Paradise down by the creek
Coolie's Creek: What a great name for a Chinese restaurant. OK, it may not be the most politically correct moniker, but when you get there you know it feels absolutely right.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 19, 2009
Simple seafood and a fish shack
"Meet you at the fish shack in Meguro!" It was a suggestion, a rendezvous, an invitation to check out a new restaurant. But more than anything, in these days of straitened economics, it was an offer we couldn't refuse.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 5, 2009
Basque in great flavors at Txoko
It's no secret: Spain has some of the best food in Europe. But Tokyo is only starting to realize there's much more to it than just paella and sangria. That's why we were so pleased to hear about Txoko, the city's first restaurant specializing in the outstanding cuisine of the Basque Country.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 1, 2009
Two more treats along the waterfront
Good things so often come in threes. Between the waterfront and Bashamichi Station are a couple of other Yokohama eateries that are well worth discovering.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 1, 2009
Araiya: Celebrating beef by the Yokohama bayside
Down in Yokohama they're partying like it's 1859. It's been exactly 150 years since Japan's largest port — indeed the country itself — was fully opened to foreign trade. Earlier this month we went down to the old Red Brick Warehouses to marvel at massive mechanical spiders, France's contributions...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 17, 2009
Cafe Hai: MOT goes Vietnamese
It's always a pleasure to visit the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT) out in Koto Ward. The surrounding park is calm, the architecture of the museum exemplary, and the exhibitions invariably well curated.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 17, 2009
Kemuri: Smoking up in Kanda-Sudacho
There are half a dozen compelling reasons for heading to Kanda-Sudacho. The small pocket of back streets that survived the firebombs of World War II and — so far — the ravages of high-rise development is home to some of the city's most venerable restaurants.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 3, 2009
Fleeting beauty, timeless dining
Impatient to see the first sakura of the season, we followed the crowds into Ueno Park. It's been a good while since we last joined in the revelry at Tokyo's largest, most boisterous cherry blossom-viewing party — and never before have we done it in such gourmet style.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 3, 2009
Innsyoutei: Fleeting beauty, timeless dining
Impatient to see the first sakura of the season, we followed the crowds into Ueno Park. It's been a good while since we last joined in the revelry at Tokyo's largest, most boisterous cherry blossom-viewing party — and never before have we done it in such gourmet style.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 20, 2009
Bruschetta, beer — this must be northern Italy
Great news. Stefano Fastro, owner-patron- chef of one of our favorite Italian restaurants, Kagurazaka's inimitable Ristorante Stefano, has just opened a new place. Better news yet, it's not a spinoff or an attempt to duplicate his original operation. In fact, it's completely different in feel, although...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 20, 2009
Brusca: Bruschetta, beer — this must be northern Italy
Great news. Stefano Fastro, owner-patron- chef of one of our favorite Italian restaurants, Kagurazaka's inimitable Ristorante Stefano, has just opened a new place. Better news yet, it's not a spinoff or an attempt to duplicate his original operation. In fact, it's completely different in feel, although...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 20, 2009
Cucina Amano: With eager eyes on the kitchen
One of the particular pleasures of dining out in Tokyo is sitting at the counter of a small, owner- chef restaurant, gazing into the kitchen and watching your meal — and others', of course — being prepared.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 6, 2009
Hashidaya and Kushiwakamaru: One bird in the pot is worth two on the stick
It's awfully damp and chilly in winter alongside Meguro-gawa, the deep, concrete-lined creek that runs through Naka-Meguro. In summer, the cherry trees that line each bank provide blissful dappled shade, but at this time of year their boughs are bare.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 20, 2009
Japan meets Jamaica: ital soba in Tokyo
What is it about handmade noodles, young chefs, minuscule restaurants and hard-to-find locations? Here's another highly idiosyncratic craft-noodle shop that opened recently, which is every bit as hard to find as Nemuri-an.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 20, 2009
Asahi: Japan meets Jamaica: ital soba in Tokyo
What is it about handmade noodles, young chefs, minuscule restaurants and hard-to-find locations? Here's another highly idiosyncratic craft-noodle shop that opened recently, which is every bit as hard to find as Nemuri-an.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 20, 2009
Nemuri-an: Austere, obscure, entirely Japanese
At the recent Tokyo Taste World Gastronomy Summit, the super-chefs assembled at Tokyo International Forum paid fulsome homage to Japan and its influence on their own creative vision. Their well-honed, technologically enhanced presentations were leavened throughout with buzzwords such as dashi soup stock,...
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.
Tokyo Metro’s overseas efforts begin in earnest with London deal
Tokyo Metro will soon have a role in the running of London's Elizabeth Line, a major train route serving the U.K.’s capital city and environs.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
Ex-yokozuna Kitanofuji dies at 82
Yokozuna Kitanofuji enters the ring during the May 1970 grand sumo tournament in Tokyo.
Man charged with murder allegedly made victim date other men for money
A car carrying suspect Ryotaro Masuda, who was indicted for allegedly beating his 25-year-old girlfriend to death, leaves the Shibuya Police Station in Tokyo on Thursday.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
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.

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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