Regarding Robbie Swinnerton's Dec. 19 article, "Northern Tokyo's top-notch Italian": I had no problem with the review of the restaurant itself in this article, which lived up to Swinnerton's usually good standard. What I did feel aggrieved by was the patronizing tone of the article toward the area in which the restaurant is situated.
If I had no knowledge of the places involved, from the description I would have to presume Hakusan to be some kind of desolate wilderness, full of feral children hewing a rough existence out of whatever they could lay their grubby hands on. I would certainly not have presumed it to be in the center of the largest city in the world. There are excellent restaurants over all of Tokyo, not just in the southern half of the metropolis. Indeed, I would confidently state, though Swinnerton may not believe me, that there are even places further north than Bunkyo-ku in which a passable repast can be enjoyed.
I managed to spend one year in the uncivilized backwoods of Itabashi-ku, from whose point of view Bunkyo-ku is positively southern, and found it to have no shortage of excellence in the gastronomy department.
Swinnerton's dismissive attitude toward this side of the city, in which a large proportion of Japan Times readers surely reside, does himself and this otherwise estimable newspaper absolutely no credit.
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