thelobster

Thanks. If you're just coming from New York the prices probably won't shock you, and Union Square has that buzz going for it - a lively atmosphere that a lot of Tokyo restaurants are too small to even try for. As an alternative, Cardenas Charcoal Grill in Ebisu has a similar liveliness and equally good food, with more reasonably priced California and Aussie wines.

Tetsugen (the meat place mentioned above) has a branch in Naka-Meguro, although I haven't been. The other two branches both have great food and sake though, so it's probably worth a try. There's also a branch of Aburiya izakaya there that should be good. Here's a map of other restaurants centered on Naka-Meguro station that might be useful. Toki no Ma just up the road in Ebisu specializes in food from Kyushu, and they also have a sushi counter (they do horsemeat sushi!) and a great list of limited-edition seasonal sake. And Okinawan in Ebisu has good Okinawan, a cuisine you probably won't find in New York. Up near Akebonobashi I'd recommend Dodo for excellent yakitori. And worth a special trip and a splurge is Kikunoi kaiseki restaurant in Akasaka (they're about Y15,000 for dinner). Sorry, I think almost all of these are evening-only places. Good luck!

東京都 is a big place - where are you based, and what do you want to eat? Tetsugen Nikusho near Shibuya might be worth checking if you speak Japanese - they have lots of different meats like boar, venison, horse, all very nicely prepared. And an excellent sake selection.

I had a lovely dinner at Union Square last night, and I thought the dining room was beautiful and well laid out, with excellent lighting and a very comfortable feel. The food is typical international cuisine with an emphasis on simplicity and good-quality ingredients. The foie gras appetizer with bamboo shoot and orange slices came with an ample portion of tasty foie gras, and good contrasting textures and flavors. The slab of Iberico pork was tender and very flavorful. The grilled chicken wasn't the most exciting dish I've ever had, but it was perfectly acceptable, and the accompanying sauce and the salad of snow peas, bamboo shoots and asparagus tips helped it along quite a bit. The tuna filet mignon with wasabi mashed potatoes was excellent - a nice big cube of tuna that had been marinated in soy and mirin for three hours before grilling, served medium rare. The wine list doesn't have all that much under Y8000, but there are a few (like a Penfolds Aussie shiraz for Y4800); by contrast they have a lot of impressively expensive bottles for the big spenders in the house. Almost all wines are from Italy, France or California. The bar up front serves a full assortment of cocktails, including an excellent martini. I won't comment on the service, since they only opened a few weeks ago. All in all the food was quite good, but you can find as good or better in Tokyo for literally half the price. But it's probably a decent choice for business entertainment purposes.

It looks like a nice space, although I was surprised by how small it was. Other notable restaurants include the first Terence Conran restaurant (managed by the Hiramatsu group) and Coppola's Vinoteca. Here are a few photos I took on Monday (although not a good one of Union Square, unfortunately).

The 2007 Tokyo Zagat's and the 2004/05 Osaka Zagat's on my shelf are in Japanese only. I find their "reviews" "unreadable" and their "ratings" "unreliable", but they're handy for looking up phone numbers, or finding restaurants with a fireplace or a terrace or whatever. Clearly they need to update their website.

I think the Michelin Guide could have more negative effects on prices than positive ones, especially among European restaurants in Tokyo. There are many old-school French and Italian restaurants in town that have been charging hefty prices based on long-established but perhaps undeserved reputations, and there really isn't much tradition of negative criticism in the local press. So I can easily imagine some honestly negative reviews in Michelin bursting a few bubbles. The first guide in November will be published in Japanese and English. (By the way the first Zagat's guide was in Japanese and English, but now they publish in Japanese only.)

Indeed, although I've heard that Michelin is using some local reviewers, so perhaps they'll do a good job. As for raising prices, I doubt that the guide will have much effect. There are already many guides and other resources in Japanese for finding high-end restaurants in Tokyo.

I notice that near the end of the article writer Justin McCurry has the obligatory quote from a Japanese sushi chef: Masukomi happens to be the name of the sushi bar at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan (aka the foreign press club), and as far as I know they're not even open to the public.

I always have fun in Kuu, and I like taking people from out of town there. The food and sake are very good, and the atmosphere is great - it's got a 50th-floor view, but it's still very relaxed and casual. And they have English menus.

The newish Beacon Urban Chophouse is probably the best steakhouse in town at the moment, especially in terms of value for money. Oak Door in the Grand Hyatt is also very good, although pricey. Here are a few more options. There are a lot of organic restaurants these days, but No no Budo is an interesting corporate chain shop in that space.

Speaking of "oddly patronizing," a lot of people happen to like Japanese curry, and a lot of people like eating meat. If you're looking for something to complain about, factory farming of pigs and chickens is a lot more "disrespectful" of animals than serving their meat in a sauce that you disapprove of. As for your first point, the style of this particular bar has nothing to do with homeless shelters - standup bars are very trendy at the moment, and so are exotic canned goods.

The spam sandwich at Freshness Burger is relatively new, no? My favorite recent new burger is the maguro burger with wasabi dressing and shiso, at R Burger (branches in Roppongi and Gaienmae so far). I also like their crabcakes, and their chicken burger with ume sauce has a certain appeal.

Do you know where you'll be in Fuchu (i.e. your nearest train station)? Fuchu station itself is only 25 minutes from Shinjuku, so there's no reason you can't spend a lot of time exploring central Tokyo during your visit. There are also a few big towns out near Fuchu - Hachioji and Kichijoji, which are more or less accessible depending on which train line you're on, or if you have a car. This site: http://www.mustangsonline.org/living/West_...rants/index.htm describes an interesting-sounding place called Ukai Toriyama (near the bottom of the page) that's located in a mountainside garden. The Bento.com website has plenty of listings for Kichijoji and Shinjuku. I'd recommend checking out Shunju (grilled chicken, good sake) and Tsunahachi Rin (excellent tempura) to start with - both are in the restaurant complex at the top of Lumine Est on the east side of Shinjuku station. I'm sure other people here will come along with other suggestions. I've heard that there's a good sushi restaurant in Narita airport - does anyone know it?

Beacon and Roti both have nice-looking lunch menus that are cheaper than the Hilton (although they're not all-you-can-eat). Bento.com Thanksgiving 2006

Not having an oven doesn't need to be a permanent condition - there are brand-new microwave ovens on kakaku.com for less than Y5,500, and convection ovens for less than Y10,000.

It's interesting that the rice subsidies in the US and Japan seem to have opposite effects from a consumer point of view (if I may continue the topic hijack a little further). In Japan support is in the form of price support, and the price level here is five times the average in the rest of the world. Rice is also Japan's biggest agricultural product (35% of total agricultural output), so perhaps subsidies are relatively more important. If you like reading economic statistics about agriculture, the PSE ("producer support estimate" or "producer subsidy equivalent") figures from the OECD seem to put everything together and measure things on the same scale. Producer support percentages in Japan are about three times as high as in the US, and around ten times as high as Australia. And every cow in Japan receives $7.50 a day in government subsidies. (No wonder they can afford all that beer.)

I'm certainly not arguing in favor of "fair trade" or "free trade", whatever that may mean. I was just pointing out that as a story of successful marketing, it's less impressive if you have a free-flowing marketing budget and you can also sell your product for a lot less than it costs to produce. Full disclosure: several years ago I actually worked on a marketing campaign aimed at exporting Japanese fruit (to Europe). The budget for the campaign was absurdly high compared to the actual sales volume at the time, but it was all subsidized, and the people in charge had to use up their budget by the end of the fiscal year or else get it cut in the future. So perhaps I have a jaundiced eye towards stories like this one. One other point about the high level of farm subsidies in Japan is that it's an artifact of the peculiar electoral system where rural voters have much more power proportionally than urban voters. (Perhaps the same is true in the US, I don't know.) But I have nothing against government subsidies in general, especially when they go towards supporting a diverse crop of locally grown foods, rather than, say, artificially cheap corn syrup.

I think that's a polite way of saying that the apples don't taste all that great, or at least not enough to justify the price. I remember that when I first moved to Tokyo from the US, the quality and lack of variety of the apples in Tokyo was one of my more disappointing supermarket experiences. One interesting point from the article: "domestic farm subsidies, meanwhile, amount to about 1.4 percent of the gross domestic product, a figure greater than the entire value of Japan's annual farm production". So, basically all those exported apples are subsidized by Japanese taxpayers, including the costs of marketing them. I am glad to see that those square watermelons made an appearance in the Washington Post. They've been a favorite of Western news stories for well over a decade now.

Yes, I think we're saying roughly the same thing here. The great majority of usages are for "B-kyu" in your search. And if you just search on "kyu-gurume", the first several pages of results show an overwhelming majority of usages for "b-kyu" (i.e. I didn't notice a single one for "a-kyu"). I don't know how it's used in conversation though - I don't watch TV in Japan. Perhaps people also refer to "A-Kyu gurume"? Are you sure? When I googled 級グルメ, I got 1,870,000 hits, and when I googled A級グルメ, I got 27,800 hits, Ｂ級グルメ, 1,480,000, C級グルメ 84,000, D級グルメ 18,100, E級グルメ 15,700, and F級グルメ 34,100. ←

I got the impression that "B-kyuu gourmet" is kind of like "B-movie"; you never really refer to "A-movies", only B-movies. I did a Google search on "級グルメ" (kyuu-gurume), and all but one hit were for "B-kyuu gourmet" (there was one hit for "C-kyuu gourmet"). The very first B-Kyuu gourmet site (via Google) had a review of McDonald's, so I'm having trouble imagining how cheap a place would have to be to qualify as "C-kyuu"! Personally I can't remember the last time I had a dinner in Tokyo that was under Y2000. Even Indian food ends up being at least Y2500 or Y3000 with a couple of beers. Perhaps the price categories need to be adjusted by location....

Really? I suppose I assumed that Japanese mayonnaise (in general) didn't need refrigeration because I always see mayonnaise-slathered sandwiches sitting out on non-refrigerated shelves at the bakery. (Which is not something you should do with American mayonnaise.)

I'll agree with the posting above about pizza - Tokyo does have some excellent pizzas, with nice thin, crisp crusts made in wood-burning pizza ovens. But these are "Italian-style" rather than "Japanese-style", so maybe this doesn't fit the original question. I think Japanese curries are definitely a different dish from Indian or Thai curries, so it seems strange comparing them. Much as I enjoy Japanese curries, if I had to pick only one, it would have to be Thai curries.

I'm afraid that you're mistaken. Hellman's Mayonnaise is in fact the only decent mayonnaise available in Japan. Kewpie has the advantage that you can leave it out at room temperature and it won't go bad, but that simply proves that it's not real mayonnaise.

Oops, sorry I see they also have a website at tunahachi.co.jp, but not at tunahachi.com, for some reason.