J.J. O'Donoghue - The Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS

Jul 24, 2015

Patisserie Ravi,e Relier: Let them eat cake

A short walk from Osaka Station, on the edge of Ogimachi Park, is a petite cake shop called Patisserie Ravi,e Relier, which opened in 2009 and follows the royal maxim "let them eat cake" with an update: "Let them eat cake and drink water." This patisserie serves only cakes and water, but what a sweet...

LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS

Jul 10, 2015

Ogawa: Dining at a six-seat restaurant in Kyoto's traditional nightlife district

The Kyoto neighborhood of Gion is small but complicated. Wedged between the hills of Higashiyama and the Kamo River, it contains some of Japan's most picturesque and well-trodden streets, but there's also a warren of back-alleys and lanes with bright lights and seedy goings-on.

LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS

Jul 10, 2015

Ogawa Coffee: An old-world coffee house without the traditional atmosphere

For a small city, Kyoto is big on coffee. As with every city in Japan, the current "third-wave" coffee boom has brought more choice and quality when it comes to cafes and beans. This is undeniably good news for coffee drinkers. Ogawa Coffee and Inoda Coffee, two Kyoto coffee institutions, both predate...

CULTURE / Art

Jul 2, 2015

Hotel Granvia's rooms to get contemporary makeovers during Art Osaka

Hotels have long been synonymous with artwork, as opposed to works of art: Much of what you'll encounter are replicas at best or just plain kitsch (ahh, the Eiffel Tower ... again).

COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE

Jul 1, 2015

Public schooling is a two-way street

Earlier this year, a reader wrote to The Japan Times in response to an education feature on schooling options for the children of non-Japanese parents. The reader wanted to know more, but the earlier feature was unfortunately curtailed by space.

LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS

Jun 26, 2015

Rakushin: Austere multicourse dining in a traditional Osaka town house

What does austerity look and feel like? Well, it depends on whom you ask. I imagine for Greeks it’s a sort of endless despair engendering cynicism, but here in Japan, austerity — or, rather, restraint — can engender a sense of luxury, subtlety and even sensuality. Austerity has a long and rich...

LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS

Jun 26, 2015

A traditional Izakaya as rough and raucous as life on an old fishing trawler

This restaurant is loud, raucous and busy, much like life on a fishing boat, which may or may not be incidental since Isaribi takes its name from the light used to lure fish at night — often seen on trawlers used to catch squid. Isaribi is the original (opened in 1973) of a small chain of robatayakis...

LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS

Jun 12, 2015

Minimalist approach to traditional Japanese dining in Kyoto's Gion district

I still find it amusing that so many chefs at high-end Japanese restaurants wear neckties beneath their white chef uniforms. It seems at odds with the temperature and temperament of a kitchen, but I suppose it's no more amusing or wondrous than the traditional chef's hat, that elaborate, elongated white...

LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS

Jun 12, 2015

High-quality soup stock at Kyoto's serious ramen shop

There are two ramen shops well worth visiting in the western outskirts of Kyoto. Distance-wise, they're only a five-minute walk apart, but judging by most other measures they are polar opposites.

LIFE / Food & Drink

May 22, 2015

The dog days of cooking

Here's a recipe for ambiguity: Cooking with dog. Could it literally mean, cooking a dog? How about cooking for canines? Or, is it some weird code for cooking fetishes somewhere on the deep Web? Lucky for us (and the dogs), "Cooking with Dog" is a YouTube show featuring a Japanese housewife, known only...

LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS

May 22, 2015

Matsumoto Eiraku's lunch course is a seasonal delight

The establishments around Matsumoto Eiraku in Osaka's Kitashinchi neighborhood have names like La Madonna, Salon de Miyu, Lady Hawk and Blanc de Blanc. This may suggest the restaurant keeps ostentatious company, but you should never judge a building by its marble colonnades; the aesthetic inside is austere...

LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS

May 22, 2015

Owl Family Cafe is fun, unless you're peckish

Let's address the coffee first. It's as good as anything you'll get from a convenience store, which is to say it's not good. At all. The only beer on offer is Budweiser — also known as "The King of Beers." It's not. Budweiser wouldn't even make it past the moat for a royal gathering of beers. There's...

COMMUNITY / Our Lives

May 20, 2015

YouTuber Ken Tanaka tweaks the nose of our obsession with identity

The best way to talk to (and about) the entertainer and artist Ken Tanaka is to discuss his YouTube videos, of which there are many, and which vary wildly in terms of popularity, production and themes. But first, some biography:

CULTURE / Books

May 16, 2015

Japan's runners need a change of pace

In "The Way of the Runner," Adharanand Finn has written an entertaining account of Japan's obsession with long-distance running (and training). However, the problem is when he veers off the running track into the land of cliche. Consider this: Finn writes that bread only comes in packets of three slices,...

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS

May 9, 2015

Micaela Braithwaite: 'Follow your intuition and it will lead you to the things you love'

YouTuber on sticky rice, the Japanese work ethic and being the 'mayor' of a ward in Fukuoka.

LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS

May 8, 2015

Bite-size orchestra gets a standing ovation at Savory in Kyoto

Restaurants tend not to encourage you to play games while you eat. Customers usually pay for a solemn experience that includes an unwritten rule: The more expensive the meal, the more solemn the experience.

LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS

Apr 24, 2015

Embalming tiger shrimp in tempura at Shintaro

The recipe for tempura is widely credited to Portugese and Spanish missionaries who lived in western Japan during the late 16th century. In "Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art," author and chef Shizuo Tsuji, writes that, as this new dish caught on in Japan, it was slowly adapted for local tastes, eventually...

LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS

Apr 24, 2015

Mazura is a hazy paradise for 1970s salarymen

Now that washoku (traditional Japanese cuisine) is part of the World's Intangible Cultural Heritage, the next step is to make the nation's kissaten (tea and coffee shops) part of the world's tangible cultural heritage before they disappear.

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS

Apr 11, 2015

Josh Parkin: 'No matter what ... I'm right and you're wrong'

Luthier Josh Perkins on starting his own guitar-making business and sticking with his own excesses

LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS

Apr 10, 2015

High-quality meat and hot rocks at Grand Kitchen Tada

The centerpiece of lunch at Grand Kitchen Tada is a blackened hot stone — as black as squid ink — upon which thin slices of wagyu beef fry. The meat is still sizzling as the server places the tray down, with a warning that the stone is hot and inedible. Well, she didn't exactly say the stone was...

author

Meta

Podcast

Longform

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

In your social network

In your inbox

In your social network

In your inbox