My wife frequently says that the Ningyōchō of today is not the same as it was ten years ago. Or even five years ago. And nothing, in my opinion, epitomizes that sentiment more than the loss of our neighborhood tōfu shops. When I moved here fifteen some years ago there were six tōfu shops within a few minutes walk, one in Kakigarachō that was the first to go, perhaps because the tōfu wasn’t really all that good; […]
Read moreHashigoro はしご楼 A new building full of restaurants opened last week in Ningyōchō, Hashigoro. It’s on the corner of Kinza dori and Ningyōchō dori on the site of a former shoe repair shop and something else that I don’t ever recall seeing open for business. It’s a Mitsubishi project, which surprised me as Nihonbashi is mostly Mitsui territory. It consists of five floors of restaurants offering all sorts of Japanese and foreign cuisines, each restaurant more or […]
Read moreHappy Xmas (War is Over) While walking around my home neighborhood of Ningyōchō this evening, and pretty much every evening since October 1, I keep thinking of John Lennon’s old song “Happy Xmas (War is Over),” a song that was originally meant to be a protest of America’s war against Vietnam but evolved into more of a song to celebrate Christmas. I do not think of the song in a Christmas context, not here in Ningyōchō, especially […]
Read moreDining Out in Tokyo, Mid-August, 2021 My wife and I wanted to go out for sushi the other night here in Ningyōchō. We needed someplace close, as it was getting close to 7:00, currently the time for last order at restaurants in Tokyo under the current corona restrictions. Or at least I think it is 7:00 last order; it is sometimes hard to tell by looking at what is happening most evenings with local places. I had […]
Read moreGoodbye to 3Bis July 1, 2021 3Bis, one of my favorite places to sip nihonshu has come to an end. Pronounced in French as trois bis (トワビス), this tiny former one car garage was a side project of the owner’s main business, the excellent French (or wa-fu French) restaurant Irreel (thus the French pronunciation of the word three). Although very small with no room even for stools to sit on, let alone chairs, this stand and drink […]
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