food travel

IMG: Lining up for ramen (lamen) in Paris.

There's an article in Food and Wine called 7 Reasons Why Tokyo Is the New Paris, and a post that follows up on that on the Wall Street Journal's Japan RealTime blog titled Paris vs. Tokyo: Which Has Better Food and Drink?. As a Tokyo native who currently lives in France (although not in Paris), I thought I have some qualifications for adding my 2 cents on the subject. While the focus of both articles is on which city is "better" for an American tourist who is interested in food to visit, I'll like to expand on that a bit.

Filed under:  food travel france japan travel
IMG: Nerikiri wagashi

Kyoto, the former imperial capital, is the top tourist destination in Japan for many good reasons. A lot has been written about this city already, and it's impossible to describe in a few sentences - so I'm not going to try to. Instead, I'll share some of my favorite destinations in a series of pictures and short descriptions -- as postcards if you will. Here's my first postcard from Kyoto.

Kyoto is a city that hits the sweet spot for me in more ways than one. It is dripping with history, has fantastic shops, great art and craft galleries, and so many places to have a wonderful meal. It also has a lot of literal sweet spots. Perhaps because of its history as the seat of the imperial court, where ladies influenced much of the culture, there are many amami dokoro, or places to enjoy a bite of something sweet, both traditional and modern.

Filed under:  food travel shopping japan kyoto

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When in New York...

Filed under:  food travel new york monday photos

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In Japan, coffee is just as ingrained in everyday life as tea.

Filed under:  food travel japanese restaurants japan monday photo

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A delicious, tiny morsel from a most elegant French hotel.

Filed under:  dessert food travel france monday photo

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A container that reveals what lies within.

Filed under:  food travel miso japan kyoto monday photo

Kagizen Yoshikusa, Kyoto

This month's Japan Times article is about Kyoto sweets.

Filed under:  dessert food travel summer tea kyoto writing elsewhere japan times

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This month's Japan Times article by me is about organic and natural farmers and retailers in the Kanto region of Japan (that's the area that includes Tokyo), including the thorny subject of how they are dealing with radioactive substance contamination on their crops. Because of space constraints I had to leave a lot out of course (that's the nature of newspaper articles) so here are some supplemental things.

Filed under:  food travel shopping japan writing elsewhere japan times earthquake where our food comes from

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A little slice of old Tokyo in an out-of-the-way area of Tokyo, Obana is an unagi-ya (eel restaurant) that even someone who's not an unagi fan can love.

Filed under:  food travel japanese restaurants japan washoku tokyo

Scenes from the Shin Yokohama Ramen Museum (新横浜ラーメン博物館)

A museum that pays homage to a single type of dish? Why not - this is Japan after all.

Filed under:  food travel japanese offbeat noodles japan ramen yokohama

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