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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
May 20, 2017
The Good Vibes: The pastrami sandwich has a home in Taito Ward
Home-made pastrami. Espresso BBQ Pork. Crispy fried chicken. Three great reasons for making a detour — or even a special trip — to the back streets of Taito Ward.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 6, 2017
Mensho: Charting a new course for the future of ramen
Ramen is no longer just ramen. Japan's favorite noodle is changing in front of our eyes, evolving into new forms that have little in common with the classic soul-food bowls of the past.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 6, 2017
Takazawa 180: These boxed lunches may be the best thing about Ginza Six
Tokyo's newest major retail emporium, Ginza Six, opened on Ginza's main thoroughfare last month with hype and hoopla to match its massive scale. It's primarily a vehicle for luxury brands, offering plenty of sparkle but little in the way of atmosphere. Sadly, the same is largely true of its eating and...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 29, 2017
Sushi Jin: Self-taught master serves only the freshest fare
Toyama Bay boasts some of the very best seafood in Japan. Thanks to its unique geology — it's one of the deepest bays in the country and is fed with snowmelt flowing directly from some of Japan's highest peaks — it is home to an abundance of marine life forms, some of them rarely found elsewhere....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 29, 2017
Kousai: When firefly squid are in season, it's best to go to the source
If you like seafood, you'll love Toyama Bay. And nothing symbolizes its bounty better than hotaru-ika, the firefly squid that rise in huge shoals from the depths of these fertile waters emitting the mysterious glow that gives them their name.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 15, 2017
Path: Covering breakfast and brunch through dinner with panache
It's not hard for a restaurant to generate buzz. All it takes is a strong design, cool music — on vinyl, of course — and some hot PR. But to maintain that level of vibrancy, it needs to be good. It also helps if it's a bit special, and Path qualifies on all counts.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 15, 2017
Umami Burger: A focus on flavor with natural ingredients
Umami is hardly a foreign concept in Japan. After all, this is the land where the so-called fifth taste was isolated, named and promptly marketed to the outside world.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 15, 2017
Preparation for S.Pellegrino Young Chef 2018 contest ramps up in Tokyo
The search is on for the next generation of aspiring culinary stars. Over the next year, up-and-coming chefs around the world will be sharpening their knives and their kitchen skills in the hope of making it to the Grand Finale of the Young Chef 2018 competition in Italy.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 1, 2017
Craft Sake Week set to bloom in Tokyo's Roppongi Hills
Sake and sakura. Cherry blossom and Japan's traditional tipple make for a heady combination, wherever you put them together.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 1, 2017
Torikado: Elevating yakitori to an art form
Tokyo has no shortage of yakitori restaurants. They range from funky, smoky hole-in-the-wall grills to elegant emporia serving prime skewers of the finest fowl. But there's nowhere quite like Torikado.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 1, 2017
Hayashi: Ponder the sound of one man slurping
The ticket machine at the door to Hayashi looks more like a Zen riddle than a method of ordering noodles.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 17, 2017
Champagne & Gyoza Bar: A fine new pairing in the backstreets of Akasaka
It's gyōza time. These 1½-bite pan-fried dumplings — crisp and brown underneath, moist and meaty inside — may have their roots in China, but they're as deeply embedded in Japanese hearts and the daily diet as ramen and chahan (fried rice).
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 17, 2017
Los Barbados: Eclectic African cuisine on the fringe of Shibuya
From African chicken to Zanzibar pizza, the menu at Los Barbados runs the full gamut of eclectic. Push through the door of this eight-seat diner and you're in a parallel continent where Tokyo meets Kinshasa, with lashings of Middle Eastern flavors, too.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 3, 2017
Delifucious: Fish burgers and 'anago' dogs prepared by an experienced sushi chef
Let's hear it for Nakameguro. Tokyo's hippest neighborhood has some of the best artisan pizza, craft beer and third-wave coffee outlets in the city. Now with the arrival of Delifucious, we can add premium fish burgers to that list.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 3, 2017
Asia's top pastry chef Kazutoshi Narita on what inspires his creations
Over the past three decades, master patissier Kazutoshi Narita has worked in half a dozen countries alongside some of the world's most acclaimed chefs.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 3, 2017
Dandelion Chocolate: Half cafe, half factory, all cacao flavor
It's been a year since San Francisco's Dandelion Chocolate arrived in Tokyo with its artisan, small-batch, bean-to-bar ethos and laid-back California style — and it has proved a perfect fit in the trendy and rapidly gentrifying Kuramae district just south of Asakusa.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 17, 2017
Matsushima: Riffing on the theme of Chinese cuisine
Matsushima is not the easiest restaurant to find. It lies on a quiet pedestrian alley with its name displayed so discreetly that you barely notice the stairs leading down to its unobtrusive door. And yet, over the 10 months since it opened, a growing number of people have been searching it out.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 17, 2017
Venu's South Indian Dining: Tidy atmosphere, deep flavors
There are no prizes for guessing what's on the menu at Venu's South Indian Dining — but there are surprises.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 3, 2017
Matt Goulding's 'Rice, Noodle, Fish' makes Japanese-language debut
It's well past midnight on a frigid winter's evening and the back streets are emptying fast in Namba, Osaka's effervescent, neon-lit entertainment district. But behind the unprepossessing door of Teppanyaro, the party is only just getting going.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 3, 2017
Yakitori Imai: A new grill pairs tradition with ambience
What better way to mark the start of this new lunar year than with yakitori? It's the Year of the Fire Rooster, so that calls for some good skewers — prime jidori chicken, of course, carefully prepared over proper charcoal. At Yakitori Imai that's exactly what you get, in the most stylish of settings....
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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