January 4, 2020 Today’s date is unimportant and irrelevant to what I am about to write.  I just happened to have the time to sit down and write today, and I walked by the place that inspired me to write, even though the shop was closed.  I am talking about halal food in Japan, specifically, halal ramen. Perhaps a year and a half ago a new ramen restaurant opened in my neighborhood.  A place called Shi-bei Ramen […]

December 11, 2019 I went to a party last night in Koenji.  I thought it was going to be at a small izakaya run by someone I know, but I wasn’t sure as the party was going to have soba and Yo-chan’s place doesn’t serve soba.  I went with my friend Fu-chan who usually goes to the Nihonbashi Soba Club events with me.  I was a bit surprised when she led me up some stairs above some […]

September 28, 2019 Another Soba no Kai day.  And this time the weather is relatively cool, so no worry about sweating.  Once again we used soba from Horokanai, Hokaido, the number one soba producing region in Japan.  But this time we had shin soba, soba flour freshly milled from freshly harvested soba.  The aroma that was released kneading and rolling the dough was wonderful.  I did okay.   Not great, but not bad.  No major problems like last […]

August 30, 2019  UBER EATS A couple days ago I saw someone delivering a tray of noodles by bicycle.  I could not see what kind of noodles he was carrying as the food was mostly covered up by a furoshiki, a traditional cloth used for carrying or wrapping clothing or other items.  I always enjoy seeing people riding along delivering traditional Japanese fast-food, balancing a tray of sushi or noodles on an upturned hand.  The riders never […]

Update: As far as I am aware, there was enough beer for the RWC. Every once in a while I come across a news item that reminds me that I am still in Japan.  The latest was a small article in The Japan Times this past Monday about the Japanese organizing committee for the 2019 Rugby World Cup worrying if there will be enough beer for the 400,000 foreign rugby fans coming to Japan for the games.  […]

A collection of thoughts and commentary on the end of Tsukiji and the move to Toyosu A Few Days Before the Move Tsukiji has become an internationally recognized brand, a brand associated with the highest quality fish in the world.  That is now gone.  Toyosu will never replace it, even if the fish is more or less the same.  But because of the contaminated ground around and under the new market, Toyosu will also make people question […]