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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
Sep 7, 2012
Beard: Foodies will grow to love this brilliant brunch
Beard. What sort of name is that for a restaurant, least of all one serving French-inflected food?
LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS
Sep 7, 2012
It's never too late for more ice cream
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / FOOD MATTERS
Aug 31, 2012
Farmers markets on the rise in Tokyo
In a city the size of Tokyo, it's all too easy to be unaware of where your food comes from. Most of what we eat is shipped in from far away, not just the extremities of the country but from all around the world. Japan's overall food self-sufficiency rate is bad enough — a mere 38.3 percent as of 2010....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 17, 2012
Light meals for Tokyo's long, sticky summer
Summertime, and the living is far from easy in the city. Stuck in the middle of the heat island, appetites fray and taste buds wilt like yesterday's lettuce. Simple snacks are called for, not major meals, with copious quantities of liquid sustenance too.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 3, 2012
Torishiki: Where a yakitori artisan rules the roost
Arriving for the first time at Torishiki's elegant entrance, you'd be forgiven for thinking you had come to the wrong address. The chic, charcoal-gray facade, artfully illuminated in the dusk; the dwarf maple growing from a ceramic pot; the plain-wood sliding door with its pristine white noren curtain:...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 3, 2012
Restaurant Week offers meal deals across Japan
In the relentless heat of summer in Japan, it is often hard to generate the appetite and energy for a full-course sit-down meal. But there's far more incentive to head out for dinner (or lunch) at a top restaurant if you know you'll be getting a bargain.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 20, 2012
Montee: Thai street food (below street level) in Asakusa
To track down Tokyo's best Thai street food, you need to step out of your comfort zone. The search may lead to pungent backstreets, brash suburban malls or hole-in-the-wall stores redolent of lemongrass and durian. In the case of Montee, the trail takes you deep underground.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 20, 2012
Cafe Bleu: A new face in Shibuya's least-known corner
Maruyama-cho is one of the least-known corners of Shibuya. A generation ago, it was more famous for its "short-stay" hotels and carousing salarymen's sake bars than its dining options. While those pleasures are still available, today the neighborhood attracts a rather more varied — and less predominantly...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 6, 2012
Rokurinsha: A ramen line-up worth dipping into
Even in the middle of the afternoon on a gray, rainy-season Monday, the queue in front of us is the best part of an hour deep and moving at snail's pace. Only to be expected at Tokyo Skytree, you might say. Except we're not lining up for the observation deck: We're there for the new branch of the legendary...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 6, 2012
World Beer Museum: Having a few drinks beneath the Skytree
If the view from the top of Tokyo Skytree leaves you hungry for more down-to-earth pleasures, there's no shortage of eating options in the Tokyo Solamachi mall at the foot of the tower. The ground floor arcade offers snacks and souvenirs, including a branch of one of Tokyo's most enterprising sake specialists,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 15, 2012
Hard cheese? Not at Shibuya Cheese Stand
Who says you need pastures and milk cows if you want to produce cheese? Why not churn it out where demand is highest, right in the middle of the city? That is the admirable, out-of-the-box thinking underlying Shibuya Cheese Stand, which opened earlier this month just a short stroll from the heart of...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 15, 2012
Takazawa: Food for all the senses
Ever since chef Yoshiaki Takazawa opened his bijou restaurant back in 2005, it has been one of Tokyo's most intriguing secrets, more talked about than actually visited. Lauded more loudly abroad than here in Japan, its mystique has been fueled by the setting, the scale and a palpable sense of exclusivity....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 1, 2012
The tastiest pasta is always made by hand
There's nothing quite so satisfying as fresh-made pasta. Spaghetti out of the packet is only as good as the sauce that's served over it. But freshly rolled pasta, whether it comes as strips, strings, bows or curlicues, has a texture, taste and vitality all its own.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 1, 2012
Cucina Tredici Aprile: Rustic Italian fare, served in seclusion
Quick, before the wonderful spring weather turns to rain and then to sweltering summer. It's the perfect season for long, leisurely alfresco lunches: Time to book that peaceful verdant patio table at Cucina Tredici Aprile.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 18, 2012
Fuglen: Serve yourself at an Oslo import
Just as the daytime staff are trained baristas — and they pull an excellent espresso using their own proprietary roast of beans — the evening crew specialize in mixology.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 18, 2012
Tonki: Dishing up 73 years of tasty tonkatsu success
Nowhere does tonkatsu like Tonki. Of all the restaurants in Tokyo that serve those ever-popular cutlets of breaded, deep-fried pork — and they number in their thousands — nowhere stands out quite the way Tonki does.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 4, 2012
Akasaka's Taj serves up light Indian street food
In the early 1980s, you could count the number of Indian restaurants in Tokyo on the fingers of one hand. Top of that list, by dint of its size, prestige and the standard of the cuisine, was The Taj, close to Akasaka-Mitsuke. Sadly it went under, following a fire.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 4, 2012
Nirvanam: Savor the subtle spice of South Indian cuisine
What's the best season for eating Indian food? Summer, when all the spices help you sweat out Tokyo's clammy heat? Or in the chill of winter, to put fire in your belly? The answer: Any time at all, if the cooking is as consistently good as it is at Nirvanam.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 20, 2012
L'As: New French restaurant does things differently
It is always a pleasure to discover a great new restaurant — and even more so when "new" means a lot more than just "recently opened." L'As is a small place with a young crew and a location that is easy to overlook. But since opening in early February in the backstreets of Minami-Aoyama, it's been...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 6, 2012
Kita-Kamakura En: Kaiseki course as delicate as blossom
It's been a long countdown, but finally spring has liftoff. The buds and leaves are out, and so are those all-important cherry blossoms. And there is no finer way of appreciating them than from a table with a good menu and a choice vantage point.

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