tokyo food file

Doyo ushi-no-hi: double the "unagi day" fun in 2013

 

Poster advertising Unagi Day 2013

This year, according to the traditional Japanese calendar, the Day of the Ox (牛の日 ushi-no-hi) comes around twice during the midsummer period known as Doyo (土用). Today, 22nd July; and again on 3rd. August.

That means 2013 has two "unagi days". The implications are unclear... 

Will that add up to twice as many eels being filleted, broiled and gobbled down? Or will the impact be diluted in some way? We will see. But in Tokyo, the heat wave of earlier this month has broken and the nights are relatively cool again. So energy levels are not as frayed and sapped as usual. And as a result, the unagi "medicine" may not be as badly needed as usual.

In the upcoming August edition of Skyward, the Japan Airlines' in-flight magazine, I profile the wonderful Akimoto, a 105-year-old unagi restaurant in Tokyo's Kojimachi district. Here's the cover page:

The image is by Akio Takeuchi. I took some of my own at the same photo shoot, which I put up in a post a couple of months ago.

As for the text of the Skyward piece: I'll post it once we get into August and the magazine is actually out and stuffed into the seatbacks on JAL's international flights.

 

Park Brewery: craft ale and classy beer snacks

 

 

The classiest beer venue in the city is up and running again. And the timing couldn't be better. Just as Mother Nature — aided by the architects of Tokyo's heat island — turns up the city's thermostat to the mid-30s (Celsius), the Park Hyatt Hotel brings back its popular Park Brewery.  

Every evening, from 6 till 8 pm, the swish Deli on the ground floor of the Park Tower morphs into a beer "garden" offering nomihodai (all you can drink) craft ale accompanied by some excellent nibbles.

This is the fifth summer installment of the Park Brewery, and it features two ales on tap (also available in bottles): the ever popular aromatically hopped Park Brewery Ale; plus this year's special, a refreshingly sharp Citrus Amber Ale. Contract-brewed by Sankt Galen in Kanagawa Pref., these are good honest craft beers in the modern American tradition.

By contrast, this year the food is authentically German. You get an assortment of great cold cuts, such as Weisswurst, Bierwurst and Paprika Lyoner; bits and pieces of pickles and salad veggies; pretzels — the original kind, large and soft, which should perhaps be called by their German name, Brezeln — served with a creamy Bavarian obatzda dipping sauce.

 

Don't arrive too late: even though you can stay till 8 pm, the last entry is at 7. However, to really make it worth the ¥3,800 charge, you should aim to be in line at 6 when it opens.

It is of course wrong to think of the Park Brewery as a beer "garden" in any sense, even though it has outside tables that are most appealing if there is some breeze to dispel the humidity (though the view is hardly inspiring). For most people the place to be is at one of the inside tables. There is standing room if all the bar stools are taken.

Besides the cold cuts that come with the beer, there are plenty of other food items available from the Deli showcases. Here are some we had the other night (not all of them will be available every evening):

 

Park Brewery runs from 1st July (Mon) through 16th Sept (Mon). Daily 6-8 p.m. (last sitting 7 p.m.); ¥3,800 per head (tables not reservable)

More about the Park Hyatt's Deli in an earlier post here…

jimami-dofu goes kaiseki (and goya and rafuti and all)

There’s only one drawback with Okinawan restaurants in Tokyo. Most of them are about as basic as a backpacking beach trip. They are tasty, colorful and fun, and above all affordable. But they can leave you feeling like you’re dining with sand between your toes. Not at Tantei.

 

There is nowhere else like it in the city. The inspiration is unmistakably Okinawan, as are the ingredients — but they are prepared and presented with the understated elegance of Kyoto and its elaborate kaiseki multicourse cuisine. It’s an intriguing cross-cultural melding, and one that by and large works wonderfully.

 

This and more in today's Japan Times — in my column up now here...

Little Thailand returns to Yuigahama

 

The tricolour is flying once again over the Kamakura waterfront. The annual invasion has begun. Little Thailand is back on Yuigahama Beach.

 

That means plenty of Singha beer, plenty of beach food, plenty of cheerful smiles.

 

 

Here's a piece I wrote a few years back in my Japan Times column…  

Little has changed, except that in place of the Nepalese food outlet, we now have a multi-ethnic community of stalls, including Balinese, Brazilian, Spanish and even Dubai (complete with shisha water pipe). The beach is nothing if not polycultural.

 

Today is Umi-no-hi (aka Marine Day), a national holiday in Japan — and the beach is packed. And why not? When it gets this hot (33 degrees in the shade), who wants to stay in the city?

Happy birthday DevilCraft

Today's the second-year anniversary of DevilCraft, the fiendishly good little craft beer pub in Kanda. I dropped by there to check that everything is still up to scratch.

 

Of course it is. There may be a few more stickers on the beer fridge door…

 

But the beer selection is better than ever. And the pizza is as Chicago as ever…

 

The anniversary beer line-up is pretty awesome — just scroll down to the photo of the blackboard to see the English.

Meanwhile, the countdown is on for the new DevilCraft in Hamamatsucho. You can follow their progress as they kit out the bar on their Facebook page…

And this is what I wrote about them 2 years ago soon after they first opened…