Japanese Food

Jun 10, 2011 | Post by: Phil Lees 7 Comments

Takoyaki

I don’t understand the attraction of takoyaki. They’re balls of octopus and gluten served fresh on the streets of Japan, coated in a three types of umami: mayonnaise, bonito flakes, and their own special barbecue sauce. They turn out of their aebleskiver-like pans with a gluey consistency, a barely formed

Read More
Oct 13, 2010 | Post by: Phil Lees 2 Comments

Spam Musubi: Hawaiian sushi innovation

I’m starting to think that I may have gone a bit soft over the past few weeks. I called this non-beer surprisingly refreshing. I enjoyed this slice of spam strapped to brick of rice and served at roughly the temperature generated by salmonella having hot and dirty sex. Frankly, I’m

Read More
Oct 05, 2010 | Post by: Phil Lees 3 Comments

Asahi Style Free: Happoshu and Beer of the Third Kind

It is a strange quirk of history and economics that a nation’s taxation regimes change the beer that each country drinks. In the US, beer needs to contain at least 25% malted barley and so mass market brewers push the lower limit using rice, corn or anything else that can

Read More
Aug 22, 2010 | Post by: Phil Lees 7 Comments

Beer and Chocolate: Sapporo x Royce Chocolat Brewery Bitter

This limited release from Sapporo and apostrophe’d Japanese confectioner Royce’ is a strange Belgian nightmare; multiple vices backsliding into a brown can of depravity. Hops bitterness and cacao bitterness are perfect partners, malty and chocolate-y sublime and congruent combinations. Beer and chocolate works together. But these two really don’t. The

Read More
Aug 04, 2010 | Post by: Phil Lees 3 Comments

Eating Japanese food like a complete jackass

Katsu kari don at Narita International Airport. I cobbled together the last few yen on my Suica transit card and a fistful of hundred yen coins to buy the above breaded pork cutlet in sweet and acidic curry gravy, washed down with a bland as a mountain stream lager. I

Read More
Jul 04, 2010 | Post by: Phil Lees 4 Comments

Izakaya under the train line

There is nothing as inviting as a restaurant that builds its furniture from empty beer crates. Update, 24 June 2011: Commenter Nathan identifies the location as Under JR Yamanote line at Yurakucho Station. I’ve added the map.

Read More
Jun 16, 2010 | Post by: Phil Lees 3 Comments

Tsukiji Market is not just fish.

It also sells fat red chunks of whale meat. Not much of it though. While the cubed cetacean is pretty hard to uncover (I only saw a single vendor), what does tend to get overlooked is that there is also a gigantic vegetable market next door. Compared to the speed

Read More
Jun 12, 2010 | Post by: Phil Lees 6 Comments

This is where tuna ends

Whole frozen tuna on a forklift at Tsukiji fish market, Tokyo I have no hope whatsoever for the future of tuna. The death warrant for Atlantic tuna was written at the last meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, ensuring that current tuna stocks will have

Read More