Tag - japanese

 
 

JAPANESE

Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 11, 2014
Answer the kitchen's call with a casual cookery course
While economic growth remains slow, many restaurants are feeling the pinch, as customers choose to stay home and cook in order to save money.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KANPAI CULTURE
Mar 11, 2014
Catalan cuisine, sake's international pairing pal
"Please, just one bite," cajoled Derrick Lim, patting my shoulder like a solicitous Asian grandmother. "You have to try this dish." A certified sake professional, Lim had been explaining the concept behind his latest venture — a sake-and-tapas bar called Bam, located on Singapore's trendy Tras Street...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS
Mar 11, 2014
Malebranche: French toast and a dozen matcha confections
I have a bread maker and often have leftover heels of bread, which are ideal for French toast. In theory. In my kitchen, my pain perdu, as the French rightly call it, is more often than not flat, dreary and sans raison d'etre. Which makes the French toast at Malebranche all the better, and mine all the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / DESSERT WATCH
Mar 11, 2014
Pastry goods the color of White Day
If you're looking to impress a special girl in your life but want to keep things simple and easy on the wallet, Shiseido Parlour launched a line of white sweets this month that will be available until White Day (March 14). The custard pudding (¥451), roll cake (¥546) and éclair (¥367) are all made...
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 9, 2014
Abe's right wing threatens to cause a flap for business
One danger from Japan's nationalist rhetoric of late is that it may incite extreme nationalist reactions in China and South Korea that further damage Japanese business interests.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 9, 2014
Thai crisis puts Japanese companies on notice
With Japanese investors already nervous about the domestic recession, the global economic recovery and competition with China, Thailand's political crisis threatens to spur a dangerous outflow of Japanese capital.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Mar 8, 2014
Noisy bulbuls change with the seasons
On cold winter mornings the bulbuls come squawking their full-throated calls as they swoop onto bird-feeders, their white-tipped gray breast feathers appearing frosted by the chill.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 8, 2014
Rabid right foams at the mouth over Line's Korean connection
Internet entrepreneurism has spawned all kinds of free services and applications. Some — with names such as Yahoo, Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter — have emerged as wild successes and earned sizable fortunes for their founders.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 6, 2014
Japan's top chefs grapple with sustainable eating
After the Asia's 50 Best Restaurants awards ceremony in Singapore last month, chef Yoshihiro Narisawa was in high spirits, despite the late hour and the tropical February heat. His Tokyo restaurant, the eponymous Narisawa in the Aoyama district, had been named Best Restaurant in Japan for the second...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 6, 2014
Live-action Ghibli remake delivers a new Kiki
When is a remake not a remake? Arguably, Takashi Shimizu's "Majo no Takkyubin (Kiki's Delivery Service)" is less a reworking of the Hayao Miyazaki animation classic (which this reviewer praised on this page in 1989) than his own interpretation of the 1985 Eiko Kadono fantasy novel on which the Miyazaki...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 4, 2014
Kagari: Creamy soup and noodles worth lining up for
Tracking down tiny, one-counter restaurants in Tokyo's narrow backstreets can often feel like the proverbial haystack needle-search. No such problem finding Kagari. The giveaway is the perpetual line of people outside.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO BAR ADVENTURE
Mar 4, 2014
Sober is the new drunk at juice-cocktail bar
In an izakaya or pub in Tokyo, a glass of orange juice can look out of place among a sea of beer mugs. For a nonalcoholic drinker who chooses to avoid pints for whatever reason, going out in Japan can be hard. While beer or wine lovers have a wide variety to choose from, those who can't drink are stuck...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 4, 2014
Fuku: Your new local yakitori stop
Yakitori is neighborhood food, not destination dining. When you feel like nibbling on skewers of grilled chicken, you don't go across town; you head for your local. If you're lucky, it will be good. But it's unlikely to be as good as Fuku in Yoyogi-Uehara.
BUSINESS
Mar 4, 2014
Base salaries up for first time in 22 months in January
Salaries increased for the first time in nearly two years in January as companies boosted pay for part-timers, aiding Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's effort to end 15 years of deflation.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 2014
Problems with 'Abenomics'
The economic recovery we see in Japan now is almost entirely due to the massive 30 percent depreciation of the yen. We are back to the 'structural reform' vicious circle of the Koizumi years.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / EVERYMAN EATS
Feb 25, 2014
Prize-winning local dishes are the real taste of Japan
With memories of the Winter Olympics still fresh and with the Academy Awards just around the corner, Japanese food lovers are saluting some medalists of their own — prize-winning dishes from cooking competitions, public opinion polls and government surveys around the country. Here's a guide to some...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE PERSISTENT VEGETARIAN
Feb 25, 2014
Yakitori: not just skewered toward meat lovers
One of my favorite ways to unwind after a stressful day in the city is to hunker down in my local yakitori (grilled chicken) joint with a pint of beer and some deep-fried cheese on a stick. Not quite the quintessential picture of a vegetarian? Maybe so, but there's something about the dingy, low-key...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Feb 25, 2014
Hanakujira: Steamy scenes from the oden pot
Hanakujira is an all-society restaurant. At 5 o'clock on a Monday evening, the air still frigid with cold shock after a recent snowstorm, Osaka's great and ordinary are packed inside (and queuing outside) to get close to the steaming vats of oden. There are families with young ones, friends, office ladies,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Feb 25, 2014
Sobakiri Karani: The noodle shop you wouldn't suspect
The only clue that this is a soba shop is from the inscription on the noren curtain, but even that I didn't notice until leaving. That's not to say while passing by you don't slow down and look inside in wonder. I had pegged it as a hipster joint; there was an expensive fixed-wheel bicycle chained up...

Longform

A woman passes an "akichi" (vacant lot) in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo. The capital is littered with such small lots in part because of Japan's aging and shrinking population.
Dealing with rising land vacancies as Japan shrinks