Tag - fc-tokyo

 
 

FC TOKYO

Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 19, 2003
'Tis the season to eat, drink -- and be opinionated
'Tis the season again when the Food File anoints itself as demiurge, handing out gongs and accolades, winnowing the worthy from the weak, and pronouncing unashamedly subjective opinions about the past 12 months. So here's our annual toast to all those restaurants and stores -- most of them new, but also...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 12, 2003
The Oak Door: Steak a claim to heavyweight dining
The first thing you see as you enter The Oak Door is the bar, surrounded on three sides by sleek, glass-fronted wine racks packed with boutique New World wines. The second thing that grabs your eye is the warm, flickering glow emanating from the bank of wood-fired ovens by the kitchen, and the white-clad...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Oct 17, 2003
Sushi-bun: An altar in the temple of fresh fish
Why does sushi have to be so expensive? Granted, a modest meal at your neighborhood sushiya shouldn't involve too great an outlay. And when it comes to the mass-produced offerings that chug around conveyor belts on color-coded plates, you will never want to eat enough of them to seriously dent your...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Oct 3, 2003
Luxor: Pride of Italy, transplanted
You eat better at Italian restaurants in Tokyo than you do in Italy. A preposterous statement of unreconstructed chauvinism? An urban myth propagated by a few disgruntled tourists ripped off in Rimini? No, that is the considered opinion of a growing number of people familiar with both countries and their...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Sep 26, 2003
Tama: Pour a libation to summer's end at a stylish washoku hideaway
At last that spell of late summer heat has broken. At last we can generate something approximating an appetite. And -- all praise to the gods of zymurgy -- at last the first of the fresh-season sake is starting to arrive on the shelves and menus of our favorite ryoriya (restaurants) and izakaya.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Sep 12, 2003
Water Grill Oyster Bar: 'R' you ready to crack open oyster season?
Rules are made to be broken. Change is the only constant. Culture is porous and tradition must be fluid. These are the guiding principles for all life. How can they not apply to what and how we eat?
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 22, 2003
O, I do like to eat beside the seaside
Just because the rest of the country is heading back to work at the fag end of this cool summer doesn't mean the beach season is over. In fact, now that the crowds are thinning out, this is probably the best time to plan a day trip (or overnight) down to the Shonan "Riviera" -- that stretch of Kanagawa...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 8, 2003
Keeping your cool this summer
Summer is here, the season of lethargy and listlessness, of sweat and stunted appetites. There are ways to ameliorate (if not actually beat) the big heat, but very few of them involve eating. For us, summer is about sitting outside in the cool of the evening, a nice cold beer at hand, or a bottle of...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 25, 2003
L'Ecailler: Why shell out?
One thing should be made clear from the outset: L'Ecailler is not a restaurant for everyone. This has nothing to do with location or exclusivity, though it must be said that tony, well-heeled Shirokanedai does boast a distinctive demographic all its own. Neither is it a question of finances. L'Ecailler...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 18, 2003
This Ricos is posh, new -- but is it improved?
It was with considerable anticipation that we made our way to Akabanebashi last week to try the new Ricos, which opened June 10. After all, this is the latest from the people who brought us Ricos Kitchen near Yebisu Garden Place, which was one of our restaurants of the year in 1999 and remains a reliable...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 11, 2003
Thien Phuoc: Vietnamese cooking puts a spring in your step
It's hard to think of a food that has achieved greater upward mobility -- at least here in Japan -- than goi cuon, those delectable, rice-paper-wrapped spring rolls that almost single-handedly define Vietnamese cuisine. Over the past decade, they have moved out of the minority ghetto of back-street ethnic...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 4, 2003
Taverna Vivace: A hearty 'buon gusto' that's a bargain
It is one of the enduring conundrums of eating out in Tokyo: How come, when we are blessed with so many great little bargain bistros, there aren't just as many no-frills trattoria?
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 27, 2003
Museum Cafe: On top of the world
It's one of those universal truths we hold self-evident. Fine food plus city lights from way up above, multiplied by one significant other, equals romance. And the great thing is, that equation always adds up, no matter what city, climate or time zone you're in -- even in Roppongi Hills.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 13, 2003
Dean & Deluca: A slice of NY in Marunouchi
The gentrification of Marunouchi continues apace. No longer a staid salaryman ghetto, it has reinvented itself as some of the most sophisticated commercial real estate in the city. The latest arrival in the neighborhood is the sleek steel-and-glass Mitsubishi Trust building, rising high above the venerable...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 6, 2003
Mikawa: the golden temple of tempura
Probably our greatest complaint about Roppongi Hills (apart from its very size) is its bland uniformity. The entire complex looks and feels as devoid of character as an upscale shopping mall. Everywhere, that is, except Mikawa.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 30, 2003
L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon: Is it worth the wait? Mais bien sur!
As soon as the hype and crowds at Roppongi Hills subsided (a bit, anyway), we ventured in. Not to mill around alongside the gawping multitudes, but to make a beeline to the door of L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon. It's not every day that a new restaurant opens from the man who was hailed in his native France...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 16, 2003
Bombay Club: At last, Indian food for kulcha vultures
It's been a very long time -- thankfully -- since we could count the number of places in Tokyo serving real Indian food on the fingers of one hand. These days we don't have to travel too far to find a reasonably authentic curry. In fact, it's a measure of how fortunate we are that our main complaint...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 9, 2003
Le Jardin: The fine art of museum dining
What could be more cultured and civilized -- indeed more pleasurable -- than to spend the morning strolling around a good museum and then, with legs aching and aesthetic senses saturated, to adjourn from exhibition hall to adjoining restaurant for a leisurely lunch? Especially when the cuisine is sophisticated...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 2, 2003
Studio J: Masahito Ueki does it again
While the eyes of the world -- or at least the Tokyo-centric portion of the planet -- have been fixed on the unveiling of the massive Roppongi Hills complex, our attention was focused on another new arrival, not so far away but on a totally different scale. For us, the main event last month was the opening...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 25, 2003
Un Cafe: I'm falling in love again
Going back to favorite restaurants after a gap of several years is much like meeting up with an old flame after being out of touch for too long. Anticipation is likely to be tempered by a good measure of anxiety. How have they changed? What if they don't look so good any more, or they've gone to fat,...

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Yasuyuki Yoshida stirs a brew in a fermentation tank at his brewery in Hakusan.
The quake that shook Noto's sake brewing tradition