Tokyo

Kondo Honten: Simple Pleasures

Japan is well known for its variety of national dishes, as well as local specialties claimed by individual regions and cities. Tokyo, which boasts more Michelin stars than any city in the world, is a natural nexus for these disparate eats, as well as more international fare. It may come as a surprise, then, that Tokyo itself only really has one true homegrown specialty: monjayaki. The baseline ingredients for monjayaki, often referred to simply as monja, are nothing more than wheat flour and dashi, that ubiquitous Japanese broth made from kombu (kelp) and shavings of katsuobushi, dried, fermented and smoked skipjack tuna. Cabbage is also common enough to be considered a third basic ingredient.

Tokyo

Hanabi: Turning Taiwanese

It’s an unseasonably warm winter day as we make our way through the residential backstreets of Higashi-Shinjuku. Drying laundry hangs on nearly every balcony of the low-rise apartments beneath a cloudless, blue sky. The streets are nearly empty, but rounding the final corner to our destination we join a stream of people from all four points of the compass congregating in front of the Tokyo branch of Nagoya-based maze-soba shop Hanabi. The story of how this particular noodle dish came to be is a winding one. In the 1970s, the Taiwanese chef Meiyū Kaku was living in Nagoya and missed a few choice flavors from home.

Tokyo

Udon Shin: Rolled to Order

Anticipating a line, we arrived ahead of our appetite, but the slightly acrid smell of fresh dashi wafting over the street hurried our hunger. Tucked behind a handful of confounding corners southwest of Shinjuku Station in a mixed-use neighborhood of apartments, shops and offices, Udon Shin has consistently ranked among the best udon restaurants in Tokyo since opening in April 2011. At around ¥1000 (US$9) per meal, you feel like you're getting away with something. Owner and chef Shinji Narahara deftly handles the classic accompaniment to udon (think homemade dashi, deep-fried tofu and tempura) but elevates the humble noodle to modern heights with their trademark carbonara udon.

Tokyo

Tori-niku Kenkyuujo: The Chicken Lab

Walking through Tokyo’s Shin-Okubo neighborhood – AKA Koreatown – can be sensory overload. It’s Saturday night, and we weave through throngs of people along Okubo Street, passing crowded cafes and Korean cosmetics shops. The soundtrack of Korean pop music drifting from every restaurant and café is punctuated by shouts from inside a Korean grocery or the blare of a pachinko parlor. Every shop is painted in an audacious purple or pink or else a dazzling orange or yellow, competing for attention. Scents of foods spicy and sweet drift from storefronts. Tokyoites come to Koreatown for two reasons: shopping and food, but we haven’t come to shop.

Tokyo

Tokyo Kissaten: Coffee and (Minimal) Conversation

Our eyes take a moment to adjust to the dim light upon walking into Ladrio. The room is like a vault, its brick walls and floor emitting a scent familiar to anyone who’s ever been in a cave or stone cellar. This mustiness is comforting, however, and the cool air a welcome reprieve from the furnace of the Tokyo summer outside. Soon we can make out several low tables extending back into the narrow space. People sit alone or in pairs sipping coffee or puffing cigarettes. Some converse in hushed tones as Edith Piaf is piped quietly from an unseen stereo. A few heads swivel in our direction but gazes never linger here.

Tokyo

Umeshu Dining Myoujou: Drink to Your Health

Long valued for its medicinal properties, the East Asian stone fruit ume appears in Japan’s oldest pharmacological dictionary, written in 918. Something between a plum an apricot, the ume is more acidic than both and rich in antioxidants. The first mention of umeshu, a liqueur made by steeping ume in usually distilled spirits and commonly translated as plum wine, came centuries later in a book of Japanese cuisine published in 1697. Ume’s medicinal value appears to have carried over, though, as this later work claims that the flavorful tonic both spurs the appetite and counteracts poisons.

Tokyo

Behind Bars: Getting Tight at Tokyo's Tight Bar

If it weren’t for the dozens of brightly lit signs and paper lanterns promising libations of every sort, you might mistake the two narrow alleys alongside the train tracks on the northeast side of Shibuya station for a derelict apartment block. In reality Nonbei Yokocho (AKA Drunkard’s Alley) is one of Tokyo’s few remaining yokocho (side street) bar districts. Like the much larger and better-known Golden Gai in Shinjuku, Nonbei Yokocho is a collection of aging and tightly packed microbars. Each watering hole is scarcely more than a few square meters, and if longtime regulars aren’t taking up the scant floor space, newcomers may try any number of doors before they find an empty seat.