It's prognostication time again and, just like Janus (after whom this month is, after all, named), the Food File likes to look ahead by surveying all that lies behind.
Every year at this point, we sit down and sift through the tea leaves and scrutinize the entrails of the past 12 months. In part this is a way to divine the trends of the year ahead. But just as much it is intended to pay tribute to some of the outstanding restaurants, cafes, bars and books that we have enjoyed but, for whatever reason, we never got around to mentioning in print.
The marketing event of the late summer was the grand opening of the massive Marunouchi Building, a landmark tower with multiple dining possibilities from basement basics all the way up to the overhyped, overpriced and overpopular penthouse establishments. With all the attendant media hullabaloo, however, little attention was given to the arrival a mere month later of the latest Four Seasons Hotel, inside the new Pacific Century Place building just the other side of the JR tracks, or of its super-stylish flagship restaurant, Ekki.