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April 05, 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
May 3, 2013
Cafe 104.5: The delicious upside to urban development
Onward and upward: Tokyo's ever-changing skyline sprouts new high-rise buildings like bamboo shoots in spring.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS
May 3, 2013
Custard treats are anything but square
How long does it take a business to achieve cult status in Tokyo? Years or decades in most cases. For Omotesando Koffee it was barely a matter of weeks.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 19, 2013
Abrazo a la Oaxaqueña: Mexican moles under wraps in Shimokitazawa
You never know quite what you're going to find in the busy back alleys of Shimokitazawa. It has music bars and shisha pipe dens, old-school yakitori, the latest in craft beer, tofu doughnuts and bohemian barista coffee. So why not artisan tortillas and mole sauces from the far south of Mexico?
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 5, 2013
Akasaka Kikunoi: Tastes of old Kyoto in Tokyo's bustling heart
A pair of ornamental cherry trees stand like attendants by a sturdy wooden gateway. A narrow flagstone path lined with bamboo and maples curves out of sight in the mid-distance.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS
Apr 5, 2013
Springtime sweets come into bloom
The petals may have dropped from the cherry trees, at least in the Tokyo area, but there are plenty of leaves to be seen — and not just on the trees. Look around any shop selling traditional wagashi sweets at this time of year and you'll find cherry leaves in evidence, wrapped around sakura-mochi....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 29, 2013
Dine with a backdrop of cherry blossom
With an ephemeral canopy of pink sweeping Japan, the JT's food writers know the perfect spots to dine with an eyeful of sakura (cherry blossom) — or just the right sake to sip as you picnic under the petals.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / FOOD MATTERS
Mar 29, 2013
Fearless foodies? Let them eat dirt
Soil, dirt, mud ... Call it what you like, the not-so-secret special ingredient at some of Japan's high-end restaurants has a distinctly earthy quality. And over the last couple of months, it's been getting substantial media attention, both at home and abroad.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 15, 2013
Wana: Pay like a pauper, eat like a lord
"It's still gibier season," proclaims the sign on the street corner outside Wana. And who could argue with that? There's no reason why game meats and wildfowl should only be eaten in winter. If they're readily available, why shouldn't we enjoy them all year round?
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 1, 2013
Den: Modern Japanese with a wry twist
Japanese cuisine at its loftiest is elegant and profound. It can be taut as a tea ceremony or exquisite as a furisode kimono. But inventive, irreverent? Only at Den.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS
Mar 1, 2013
Tea and cakes, the British way
'I am not very fond of sugar and sweet things, and yet I became a pastry chef.' The story of British pu00e2tissiu00e8re Rose Carrarini, whose quote adorns the wall in the growing number of cafe-bakeries that bear her name, is an eye-opener on many levels.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 15, 2013
Teuchisoba Narutomi: Soba and tempura make for a classic combination
Tempura and soba: Separately, they're two essential elements of traditional Japanese food culture. Put them together side by side on the table and they add up to one of the all-time classic dishes.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS
Feb 1, 2013
An experimental approach to afters
Japan's prodigious ability to assimilate, reproduce and then develop homegrown adaptations of products from other cultures is legendary. Why should it be any different when it comes to patisseries?
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 1, 2013
Le Verre Vole a Tokyo: Say bonjour to Tokyo's own taste of Paris
The red-framed doors and purple canopy that mark the front of Le Verre Vole a Tokyo are a cheerful sight at any time of year. In the chill dark dead of winter, their glow is even more welcoming, especially if you're arriving on foot.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 17, 2013
Convivio: Shinjuku's latest Italian proves itself on the plate
First impressions are everything — and at Convivio they are distinctly underwhelming. The elevator entrance, just off a busy main street in brash Shinjuku, is right by the service counter of a KFC outlet, the stern glare of the Colonel seeming to reproach you for aspiring to loftier sustenance than...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 4, 2013
Misogura Tamayura: Welcome the new year with a taste of tradition
Tradition rules at this time of year, and few parts of Tokyo are more traditional than the grid of narrow streets to the south of Ueno's Shinobazu Pond. Although many of the buildings in this former geisha district have seen much better days, there are still gems to be found — and Misogura Tamayura...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 28, 2012
2012: Another year of good Tokyo eating
Before we usher out the Dragon and ring in the Snake, it's time to pause, look back and appreciate all the fine eating that Tokyo has provided this year. Gongs and rankings are meaningless in a city the size of Tokyo: How can anyone visit and compare more than a fraction of even the best restaurants?...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 7, 2012
Monna Lisa: Michelin-starred food you can afford
As the dust settles from the annual pronouncement of Michelin stars — and, yes, Tokyo remains the tire company's gastronomic capital of the world — it's timely to remember that stellar dining does not have to mean stratospheric prices, even in the most rarefied of surroundings. A case in point: Monna...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS
Dec 7, 2012
Candy made fresh at Tokyo stores
If Christmas is the time when adults pander to their inner child, then it is holiday season all year round at Papabubble. Tokyo's premier purveyor of artisan candies is no ordinary sweet shop: it's more like a Santa's grotto — complete with happy toiling elves.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / FOOD MATTERS
Nov 30, 2012
Japan can learn from the Nordic kitchen
Food production in Japan is not in great shape. For decades, rural populations have dwindled and local farmers have been undercut by imports, at both the cheap and luxury ends of the market. Current plans to open up Japan's famously closed farming market through free-trade pacts sound like a death knell...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Nov 16, 2012
Flatiron: Flavor and flair combine in miraculous chemistry
Whenever an exciting new restaurant is launched in Tokyo, usually it's all over the foodie magazines within days. Not so with Flatiron. Though it's been up and running since September, it's been flying well under the radar.
U.S. tourist arrested after bringing a handgun into Japan
Hyogo police believe the handgun a U.S. tourist inadvertently brought into Japan slipped through security procedures at Kansai International Airport in Osaka Prefecture.
3D printer used to construct train station building in Japan
A train station building (front) is assembled from parts printed using 3D printer technology, in Arida, Wakayama Prefecture, on Wednesday.
Japan’s leader didn’t read the job description
Prime Minister and ruling Liberal Democratic Party leader Shigeru Ishiba is facing a political funding scandal that has damaged his reputation and sparked speculation that internal efforts to remove him are underway.
Japan promises 'bold and speedy' response to Trump’s surprise 24% tariffs
U.S. President Donald Trump unveils new U.S. tariffs at the White House in Washington on Wednesday.
Tokyo’s KK Line to close for decadelong overhaul as public greenway
People enjoy running and yoga on Tokyo Expressway’s KK Line, a 2-kilometer elevated expressway cutting through the capital’s commercial Ginza district, when it was opened as a pedestrian space in May last year.
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).
Nintendo to launch the Switch 2 on June 5
The controllers for the Switch 2 will attach to the console magnetically rather than sliding on rails as with the original device.
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.

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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