Food in the Time of Coronavirus (in Japan) With a nod to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel Love in the Time of Cholera. May 22, 2020 Now that most restaurants have at least partially reopened, I have noticed that not much has changed regarding smoking. Almost all the places that formerly allowed people to smoke still do so, the only difference being a sticker on the door with a picture of a smoking cigarette indicating the place is […]

April 8, 2020  Kanbutsue (灌仏会), or Buddha’s Birthday Despite the lockdown that kind of started yesterday, I decided to go across the Sumida River to Ryōgoku and Kyōshi honoka (蕎肆 穂乃香)for some sakura-kiri soba.  I came across Honoka’s sakura-kiri soba several years ago and have been going back at least once every late March or April during sakura season as this shop’s are the best I have ever tasted.  Sakura-kiri soba is soba cut with cherry blossom […]

April 1, 2020　(no foolin’) I have been holed up all day in my office writing and listening to recordings of Eric Clapton’s Derek and the Dominos concerts from 1970, venturing out just a couple times to take care of some errands.  I am staying inside not because of the coronavirus but because it is cold and rainy.  Just like a typical day in Oregon.  Although the virus scare isn’t what is keeping me indoors today, it has […]

March 16, 2020 Whisky.  Or for where I am from, Whiskey Two summers ago I started drinking whisky highballs.  I found the drink to be very refreshing and not too filling on a hot Tokyo summer day.  Sometimes in the heat of August I just cannot drink much beer as it is too hot.  Highballs turned out to be a nice alternative.  Honestly, until three years ago, I never even liked whiskey.  The reason was probably because […]

March 19, 2020 Sugita Sushi Yesterday was my wife’s birthday and in what is getting to be an annual way to celebrate, we went to Sugita Sushi for dinner.  This was the third year in a row for her birthday.  And as always, it was a great meal.  Because it was a Wednesday, this time I chose the 8:30, second seating, figuring we wouldn’t be so rushed to finish as 8:30 approached.  It turned out I made […]

March 7, 2020 I was supposed to be down the street from my home at the Meijiza Theater right now to watch kabuki with my wife and a group of friends, then have dinner afterwards, but it is not happening thanks to the coronavirus.  I felt bad when I had to cancel reservations for 21 people at a local restaurant, but when I did I had a feeling they were expecting it.  Last night, a Friday, local […]

January 11, 2020 It is back to Kōenji for another noodle party, this time udon rather than soba.  I met my friend Fu-chan at Suitengumae station to catch the train to Kudanshita where we changed to the Tōzai line and on to Kōenji, an area I rarely venture out to.  When we got to Seiko-san’s bar/restaurant, the same place where we had the soba party a month before, there were already eight or nine people there, enough […]

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 […]