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April 03, 2025
 

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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
Jul 1, 2017
Out: One dish, one wine, one band and an abundance of style
With its gleaming glass frontage and punchy name in purple neon beaming into the Shibuya night, you can tell straight away Out is going to be a bit special. But it's only when you're inside and ensconced at the elegant little horseshoe-shaped counter that you realize how out there it is.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 17, 2017
Pizza Studio Tamaki: A challenger for the title of Tokyo's best pie?
Tokyo's best new pizzeria is not hard to find. Just a brief stroll from Akabanebashi Station, it faces out onto a quiet open space ringed with trees. You can't miss it: the neon glowing over the door proclaims "Pizza" and, in smaller letters, the acronym "PST."
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 17, 2017
Another8: Craft beer, stylish setting, top-shelf fare
Another month, another new craft beer bar throws open its doors in Tokyo. The spread of microbrewed saisons, porters and hopped-up IPAs is inexorable and highly welcome — especially when the venue is as attractive and welcoming as Another8.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 3, 2017
Ryo: Grilled eel perfectly paired with sake and relaxed style
Specialist unagi restaurants generally fall into two categories. Most follow tradition, evoking the old days when grilled freshwater eel was a humble food of the masses. Others adopt a more sophisticated, formal approach for their eel cuisine. But Ryo boasts a style very much its own.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 3, 2017
Sanagi Shinjuku: pan-Asian fare with an upbeat beer garden vibe
Time was when dining out under Tokyo's train tracks and expressways meant slumming it with dodgy yakitori and rotgut sake. These days the arches are gentrifying fast — just look at Sanagi Shinjuku.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 20, 2017
Mimosa: Taking Shanghai cuisine to the next level
When a restaurant is so popular you have to reserve as much as a month in advance, there's always a concern it may not live up to all the anticipation. But no need to worry at Mimosa, when you (eventually) get to your table there.
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.
As ‘Buy Canadian’ grows, more U.S. firms say retailers turning away products
Empty shelves with "Buy Canadian Instead" signs are seen in the American Whiskey section of the BC Liquor in Vancouver, British Columbia, on March 10.
Trump unveils 10% global tariff, with Japan levy set at 24%
Trump tosses a MAGA hat to the crowd during an event in which he unveiled new tariffs in the White House on Wednesday.
A Canadian made a weekend trip to Costco a Japanese pastime
Under the watchful eye of Ken Theriault, Costco representative director and Japan country manager, the American membership-model wholesaler has flourished in Japan.
Meiji says sayonara to bottled milk, a staple of Japan's bathhouses
Meiji bottled milk lined up in a fridge at Kosugiyu, a bathhouse in Tokyo. The sticker urges patrons to enjoy the milk one last time before it’s gone.
Japan, South Korea and China vow to strengthen trade ties amid looming U.S. tariffs
Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yoji Muto (left), South Korean Trade Industry and Energy Minister Ahn Duk-geun (center) and Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao during a trilateral meeting in Seoul on Sunday
Haruki Murakami TV adaptation revisits 30 years of watershed moments
Though Haruki Murakami's trademark whiff of offbeat existentialism is threaded throughout NHK's "After the Quake," the final episode — conceived as a sequel to the story "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" — is the most stylized, featuring an anthropomorphic talking frog (voiced by Non) and his erstwhile associate Katagiri (Koichi Sato).
A new human trafficking trend emerges from Myanmar scam centers
Victims of scam centers who were tricked or trafficked into working in Myanmar gather at a compound inside KK Park, a fraud center on the country's border with Thailand, after a multinational crackdown in February.
Meiji says sayonara to bottled milk, a staple of Japan's bathhouses
Meiji bottled milk lined up in a fridge at Kosugiyu, a bathhouse in Tokyo. The sticker urges patrons to enjoy the milk one last time before it’s gone.
A Canadian made a weekend trip to Costco a Japanese pastime
Under the watchful eye of Ken Theriault, Costco representative director and Japan country manager, the American membership-model wholesaler has flourished in Japan.
On defense, Japan may avoid Trump's worst impulses — for now
Defense Minister Gen Nakatani and U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth chat after reviewing an honor guard during a welcome ceremony at the Defense Ministry in Tokyo on Sunday.

Podcast

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

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan
By Johan Brooks

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