We woke one Sunday craving omuraisu, our favorite Japanese comfort food. Omuraisu, sometimes rendered as omurice, is an umami bomb: a soft egg omelet arranged over rice studded with a protein such as chicken or pork and a flourish of ketchup-laced demi-glace sauce over the top. So we headed to Edoya, a yoshoku outpost in central Tokyo that opened over 60 years ago and became popular thanks to a particularly affable chef. Although it means “Western food,” yoshoku is a decidedly Japanese creation, one inspired by a 19th-century notion of pan-European cuisine. Developed with the support of the Meiji Emperor around 1900, this style of cooking places a great emphasis on meats, often paired with rich demi-glace sauces, which many believed would help Japanese people become larger in build.

The song “My Way” may be a staple of every karaoke bar in Japan but it’s also a fitting description for the Japanese fast food staple of “curry rice” as served at both Rojiura Samurai Curry and CoCo Ichibanya. One can find four Tokyo outposts of Rojiura Samurai Curry, a Hokkaido curry maker from Sapporo, in Hachioji, Shimokitazawa, Kakurazaka and our favorite, Kichijoji. It seems these Japanese curry masters are fond of opening shops in cool neighborhoods where the locals will appreciate the uniqueness of this favored Japanese dish. Much like ramen noodles, curry rice is adapted from a foreign cuisine as a form of fast food in Japan.

It’s noon on the first day of 2022 in Tokyo’s historic Asakusa neighborhood and we find ourselves in Hinatomaru, a casual standing sushi bar. There are few better places to eavesdrop on conversations than in small bars like this one. Outside, thousands of people bundled in winter coats and kimonos throng the main approach to Sensoji, Tokyo’s oldest Buddhist temple. Shepherded by police into a queue spilling out onto the road in front of Kaminarimon Gate, which has been closed off to cars today, they’re here for hatsumōde, the first shrine or temple visit of the new year. We decided to forgo the crowded shrine for our own venerable tradition of hatsuzushi: the first sushi of the year.