"What better way to start the New Year than by looking back? After all, how can we move ahead if we don’t know the past? Here are five classic Tokyo ryoriya where tradition rules and the roots of today’s food culture live on…"
My latest column in the Japan Times is a salute to some of the city's great old-school restaurants — all of them in business for a mimnimum of 100 years. Here are a few more images, with links to my original reviews:
Isegen, the wonderful anko-nabe house in Kanda-Sudacho…
Dote-no-Iseya, trencherman tempura on the seedy fringes of Yoshiwara, formerly the largest red-light area in the capital…
image from Dote-no-Iseya.
Otafuku. 100 years old this year, and nowhere does oden with a greater touch of history. A Tokyo shitamachi classic (even if they did relocate here from Kansai)…
When it comes to unagi, there's the one and only Obana, out in Senju. Not neccessarily the very best in town, but among the most atmospheric.
image from unagidaisuki.com
Kanda Matsuya needs little introduction on this blog. I've written about it here… and here…
I've been eating there every couple of months for 35 years now – and will continue to for as long as I live here. There's only one word for it: classic.
"It is the sense of connection with the past that continues to underscore Tokyo’s vibrant restaurant culture.
"Forgetting the past, as the epithet goes, may mean being condemned to repeat it. But at any of these restaurants that would be no hardship at all."
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