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April 04, 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.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 16, 2007
Restaurant Khyber: Subtle spices from the tandoor grill
The tandoor oven has come a long way from its humble roots in northern India and what is now Pakistan. Basic but so effective, its design has remained unchanged for thousands of years: a simple terra-cotta cylinder, maybe a meter high and 25 cm across, surrounded by thick insulation to keep the heat...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 2, 2007
Brasserie Paul Bocuse Le Musee: given the museum treatment
The wraps came off the new National Art Center in late January, revealing Kisho Kurokawa's tour de force in all its glory. The sinuous, bulging facade is remarkable enough, but it's the vast atrium inside that undulating skin of celadon-green glass that really stops you in your tracks.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 16, 2007
Fired up for a Chinese celebration
The bunting and decorations are in place. The fatted calf has been slaughtered, the fatted lamb, piglet, chicken and duckling, too. The Chinese New Year is upon us, and close to a third of the world's population is ready to party.
MULTIMEDIA
Feb 2, 2007
No need to shell out for these oysters
No prizes for guessing what's on the menu at Tokyo Oyster Bar. The name is succinct, businesslike, almost generic. You would imagine it to be sleek, perhaps a bit impersonal, and definitely a bit pricey -- after all, that's the image most other oyster bars in the city aspire to. You'd be wrong.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 19, 2007
Ebisu Imaiya So-Honten: Skewered or simmered, rare birds
The evenings are long and dark. Icy winds whip through the streets. Comfort food is called for, and it pays to know where to find it. If we're in Ebisu, as often as not we head straight to Imaiya So-Honten.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 12, 2007
Wine bars you can't afford to miss
Tokyo is awash with wine these days. Any restaurant that wants to be taken seriously -- and, more importantly, has high overheads to cover -- must boast a well-stocked cellar, preferably glass-fronted, carefully illuminated and strategically placed in full view of the dining room.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 5, 2007
Kamakura: slow food on the coast
We spent this new year, as is our custom, in Kamakura. We helped to toll the joya-no-kane bell at our favorite hillside temple. At a little shrine under a steep, wooded cliff, we made our ritual hatsumode obeisances. And then, needless to say, we feasted in auspicious style.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 15, 2006
Reminiscing on a year at the table
The solstice is upon us, and the holiday season is closing in fast. But before we take refuge under the mistletoe and give ourselves over to the usual Yuletide overindulgence, we must first clear the clutter from the Food File desk and tidy up all the loose ends.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 10, 2006
Guidance from a master brewer
THE BOOK OF SAKE: A Connoisseur's Guide, by Philip Harper. Kodansha International, 2006, 96 pp., 2,940 yen (cloth) How the global culinary pendulum does swing. It was not so long ago that drinking sake was considered as exotic, or even as ill advised, as eating raw fish seasoned with green horseradish....
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 1, 2006
High-end dining: two of our best
Change and entropy, as the philosophers might say, are the only constants. Nowhere is that more evident than in this mighty metropolis and its ever-evolving restaurant scene. New places open, others fade away, but the very best understand how to keep moving with the times.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 1, 2006
New York Grill and Les Saisons: two of our best
Change and entropy, as the philosophers might say, are the only constants. Nowhere is that more evident than in this mighty metropolis and its ever-evolving restaurant scene. New places open, others fade away, but the very best understand how to keep moving with the times.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Nov 17, 2006
High tea and cocktails
The ghosts of Tokyo past may still haunt the inner recesses of Kagurazaka, but increasingly they are being hemmed in by the encroaching architecture of the brash modern city. As with Sakura Sakura, though, a small but growing number of the surviving prewar low-rise, timber houses are being given a new...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Nov 17, 2006
Sakura Sakura: After dark in the alleys of Kagurazaka
NOTE: Sakura Sakura is no longer in business.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Nov 3, 2006
Citabria: Fine dining that really takes flight
Special people deserve special occasions. But finding exactly the right place for that celebratory dinner is easier said than done -- especially when your criteria are as stringent as ours.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Oct 20, 2006
Lohotoi: Not your dime-a-dozen dim sum
We are always on the prowl for good dim sum. We also keep our ears pinned back for reports of fine Chinese cooking in that elusive middle ground that is neither fancy nor funky. So, on hearing enthusiastic reports of a good Hong Kong-style restaurant offering both, it didn't take us long to investigate....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Oct 6, 2006
Go with the grain at Kokoromai
Shinmai-nyuka -- the new rice is in stock. Far more than just a statement of fact, it's a cry of exultation that has echoed down the centuries. Last autumn's rice is old and tired; this year's newly harvested grain is fresh and full of flavor. Is that not cause for celebration?
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Sep 29, 2006
Finding the finest foods from afar
Tokyo is not just one of the world's great restaurant cities, it's equally good for those who prefer to cook at home. Name the country or cuisine: Chances are you can find whatever ingredients you need, if not at your local supermarket, then certainly without having to leave the metropolis.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Sep 15, 2006
Ristorante Lastricato: Such quality, such flavor. Bellissimo!
Lastricato lies on the main street of Ushigome, a quiet neighborhood not far from Kagurazaka but quite distinct in character. At first glance, it looks typical of the many mid-range little ristoranti that dot the city these days. Compact but not cramped, chic but not self-conscious, it is worth dressing...
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Sep 1, 2006
Bongout Noh: A sutando where standards are high
The boom in tachi-nomi (drinking while standing) bars continues unabated. At the traditional end of the spectrum are the rough-and-ready sake and shochu pubs. At the other extreme are more genteel establishments that prefer to call themselves sutando bars. The principles are the same -- no chairs; pay...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 18, 2006
Roamin' for ramen: five favorites
Ramen. It's one of the few cuisines that the Food File rarely writes about. Why? Because just about everyone in Japan is an expert on the subject. Everyone has their own favorite noodle joints, as often as not in obscure suburban locations and with hourlong queues outside. And most are fiercely vocal...
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.
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.
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.
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’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.
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.
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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