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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
Nov 2, 2012
Kamachiku: Redbrick storehouse as classic as the noodles
For a food with such a long and venerable history, udon gets surprisingly short shrift in Tokyo. Sure, it's not hard to find these long, chunky, white wheat noodles.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS
Nov 2, 2012
Exhibition charts the rise of chocolate
Attention all chocoholics! Here's a way to satiate your sweet tooth without gaining a single gram. In fact you're likely to work off plenty of calories as you explore "Chocolate: The Exhibition."
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Oct 19, 2012
Ginza Okuda: Kaiseki master invites you to his second home
Autumn is the golden season. Fruit and hearty root vegetables; mushrooms, nuts and new-season rice; plentiful fish and seafood, too: This abundance is the palette from which Japan's top kaiseki chefs draw in creating their intricate, elegant multicourse meals. Few are as accomplished at the art as Toru...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Oct 5, 2012
A Ta Gueule: French fare born of a one-track mind
The golden age of luxury long-distance train travel is over. The days when overnight journeys were made in exclusive style — complete with Pullman sleeping cars, lounge bar and restaurant on wheels — have gone the way of the steam locomotive.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS
Oct 5, 2012
Tasty twists on tradition at Tokyo Station
Great fanfare accompanied the reopening of Tokyo Station's redbrick building in Marunouchi this week. And, just like any major new (or in this case 98-year-old) landmark, it's a bonanza for tie-in marketing, including plenty of sweets — all limited-edition items that can only be bought inside the station...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Sep 21, 2012
Yorozuya Okagesan: Michelin-starred food tastes better by the bottle
The entrance to Yorozuya Okagesan is, to put it mildly, discreet. The modest sign is set back so far from the sidewalk you'd never spot the steps unless you knew to look. And you'd never go down them anyway unless you had a reservation since, politely but inevitably, you would be turned away.
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.
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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