Tag - restaurants

 
 

RESTAURANTS

Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jun 10, 2014
The Kyoto neighborhood where dessert is the main course
Kitayama is five stops on the subway from downtown Kyoto, but it might as well be a million miles away for the tourists who trudge around the city in search of Kyoto tropes: temples, shrines, teahouses and geishas who are more than likely tourists dressed up for the day.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS
Jun 10, 2014
What's: Fine Matsusaka beef in a restaurant as unusual as its name
Culinary epiphanies don't happen often, but when they do, they are food for thought. I had one recently dining on prime Japanese beef and it was an experience that, on reflection, recalled a childhood event. Not that I grew up eating wagyū — far from it; rather, the portion of seared beef reminded...
LIFE / Food & Drink / DESSERT WATCH
Jun 10, 2014
A chocolate ice cream dessert you may never forget
Eating Avalanche (¥1,350) at the Marunouchi Ozao branch of Belgian patisserie Debailleul is like falling in love. You can't get the treat off your mind and the silly grin off your face. As bitter hot chocolate is poured onto it, the spherical chocolate shell melts and crumbles away like an avalanche,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS
Jun 10, 2014
Marumo Kitchen: Bowls with soul
In the DNA of almost every Japanese building there is a gene for "renewal." And so it was inevitable that Porta, the underground mall at Kyoto Station, would close earlier this year for a revamp. When it reopened it was out with the old and in with the new — and yet another Starbucks. Among the new...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Jun 3, 2014
Tokyoites needn't be sheepish about New Zealand cuisine
New Zealand is famous for its lamb, pasture-fed on the country's rolling green hills. Lamb being hard to come by in Japan, a New Zealand restaurant is a good bet if you're craving lamb chops. There are two big ones in Tokyo: Wakanui (B1F, 2-23-14 Higashi-Azabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo; 03-3568-3466; www.wakanui.jp)...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 3, 2014
Kagura: Refined traditional dining minus the airs and graces
Akasaka's restaurants are an eclectic mix. Cheek-by-jowl with the raucous pubs, ramen counters and Korean kimchee kitchens, you find inscrutable anonymous facades, many of them exclusive ryōtei (traditional restaurants) reserved for politicians and captains of industry.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 3, 2014
Patinastella: French cuisine by way of California in Shibuya
From the hubbub of central Shibuya, the walk to Patinastella takes only five minutes, but it feels like jumping several time zones. This spacious, glass-enclosed dining room could have been beamed from an affluent neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 20, 2014
La Bonne Table: French cuisine between informal and upscale
This spring brought more than cherry blossoms to Nihonbashi. It also saw the wraps removed from the two new Coredo Muromachi Buildings. Both have multiple floors of restaurants, bars and food stores. The pick of the lot is without a doubt La Bonne Table.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 20, 2014
Nihonbashi Dashi Bar Hanare: Take stock of the best broth
Next January, the eyes of the gastronomic world will be fixed on Nihonbashi as Denmark's Noma restaurant, recently voted top again in the World 50 Best list, opens for an extended pop-up inside the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. No need to wait that long to discover this rapidly reviving neighborhood, though:...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KANPAI CULTURE
May 13, 2014
Let's not forget the sake at world food events
On the afternoon of April 28, at an intimate gathering in London's Ametsa restaurant, a cluster of admirers with champagne flutes in hand fluttered around chef Helena Rizzo. The Brazilian Rizzo, who helms the acclaimed restaurant Mani in Sao Paulo, had recently been named the World's Best Female Chef,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS
May 13, 2014
Café Indépendants
You don't have to be hip to enter Café Indépendants, but it helps. Located in the basement of the old Mainichi Shimbun Kyoto bureau, Indépendants is the kind of cafe frequented by the artsy set. There is a version of this cafe in every city all over the world. In Cork, where I grew up, that cafe was...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS
May 13, 2014
Nanaezushi: Edo-kei sushi without the sticker shock
We need to talk about sushi. First, any discussion of sushi isn't worth its wasabi without a mention of the perspicacious octogenarian Jiro Ono, star of the documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi," about his Michelin-starred restaurant in Ginza — you know, the one that Obama took Abe to, or was it the other...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 29, 2014
Shooters Sports Bar and Grill: A taste of America in Nagoya
Having first opened its doors in 1997, Shooters is the longest running and most successful international restaurant in Nagoya. But it is not only its longevity that makes this a great place to hang out: It also boasts friendly staff, a well-stocked bar and generous portions of Americana cuisine.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / NAGOYA RESTAURANTS
Apr 29, 2014
The Corner: Great burgers at any angle
The Corner is a tiny little nook of a place that has been running since 2011 and (although this may be contested by some) serves the best burger in town. A "New York-style bar," The Corner is keen to put the gourmet into burger making, as every patty is handmade and every bun spread with a unique secret...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE PERSISTENT VEGETARIAN
Apr 22, 2014
In search of the fruits of Okinawa's oceans
Seven years ago, I bit into a delicate variety of seaweed called umi-budō, or "sea grapes." I remember sampling a few dishes at Unjami, an Okinawan-style izakaya off Nakano Broadway in Tokyo (5-55-1 Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo; 03-5345-5836), but the umi-budō stood out as something special. These tiny,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Apr 22, 2014
Gohanya Isshin: a diverse menu topped by fries that wax poetic
Isshin is deceptively big, dimly lit and madly busy; but the staff are on their game. More impressive is that the kitchen produces such high-quality fare in such a demanding work environment.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Apr 22, 2014
Cafe Ibaraki Yu: Former bathhouse offers a bite of the old days
The city of Ibaraki in the north of Osaka is home to Tadao Ando's Church of the Light, a modernist concrete masterpiece. Out of the spotlight, another architect in Ibaraki has been quietly but busily breathing life into buildings whose glory days would otherwise be behind them. Cafe Ibaraki Yu might...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 15, 2014
Butagumi Dining: Quality tonkatsu pork cutlets to eat and go
What's not to like about the original Butagumi? Tokyo's temple to high-end tonkatsu (deep-fried pork cutlets) really is the finest in town. Where else serves such beautiful cuts of premium pork — from hand-reared breeds of "heritage" pigs — and in such a classic setting?
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 15, 2014
Muto: Handmade soba noodles with their own Michelin star
Who would choose to become a teuchi soba specialist? Kneading and rolling the dough, cutting it by hand, then carefully cooking and serving the delicate buckwheat noodles — it's a long, laborious job to prepare a meal that can take mere minutes to consume.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS
Apr 8, 2014
Inakatei: Local Kyoto cuisine heavy on the fish and veg
When faced with a six-page menu allied with a supplementary page loaded with specials and all in a language that makes less sense to you than abstract art, what do you do? Get up and leave is one answer, as proven by the nearby holidaying couple, American I assumed by accent and attire, who left shortly...

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