thelobster

I like Tsunahachi - I think they have good quality for a discount chain - but if someone were coming all the way to Japan for tempura I think I might recommend one of Tsunahachi's "upper-class" branches, like Tsunahachi Rin in My City Shinjuku, or maybe Tsunahachi Sui in Caretta Shiodome. By the way, their website is www.tsunahachi.com, and they do have a Shibuya branch, which is still in business.

That's an interesting question, and a tough one. Personally, I might choose Cicada in Nishi-Azabu, which has a great wine list and fantastic, modern food from various Mediterranean countries - from Portugal to Morocco. Second would be the Suehiro branch of Donjaca in Shinjuku, which makes a wonderful dish called maguro kimchee yukke - raw tuna with sesame oil and bits of kimchee. They also have great bamboo shoot dishes in season, and good chicken.

But one thing Yokohama has going for it that Tokyo doesn't is good Greek restaurants. I had a great meal last month at Sparta (045-253-1645), about 5 minutes from Kannai station. Nothing like it in Tokyo.

Tinun, I believe, is a franchise operation, with quite a bit of leeway in terms of menu offered. The Aoyama branch (near Omotesando crossing) is pretty good as well, with a fairly large menu.

Well, no, food models in Tokyo restaurants really have nothing to do with guiding foreigners on how to order - for that goal the English-langauge menu is cheaper and more efficient. Food models function as advertising (in the same way as other window displays do), so in that sense being stylish is important. And they're pretty much out of style.

I imagine the industry must be suffering, as plastic food models really seem to be going out of style, at least in Tokyo. It's rare to see them in new restaurants, other than occasionally in department stores.

According to a recent article in Slate magazine, the secret appeal of Kewpie mayo is due to....MSG. http://www.slate.com/id/2140999/

I've heard rumors that Ginga Kogen is going out of business - maybe that's why it's on sale at Yamaya. For Koshihikari and other hard-to-find microbrews, it might be worth checking out Tanakaya in Mejiro. They seem to have the biggest selection of Japanese craft beers in town.

Kinmata in Kawaramachi in Kyoto has a Western-style room; the food is first-rate, and much cheaper than the main Kitcho (Y16,000 vs. Y40,000). The food at Roan Kikunoi is also very good and inventive, and they have counter service. They're also centrally located in Kawaramachi. I haven't eaten at Doi (near Kodaiji Temple in Kyoto), but apparently their "table kaiseki" is a bargain compared to tatami service (Y9000 vs. Y25,000). Your hotel might be able to help you request table or counter seats as opposed to tatami seats when you reserve. Here's a list of several kaiseki choices in Kyoto (scroll down to the Kaiseki section): Kyoto-ryori at Kansai Food Page

National Azabu supermarket in Hiroo, among many other places, sells "caffeineless" coffee beans.

This may not be very interesting if you're not in Japan, but I've made bilingual sushi and oden glossaries tailored to i-mode phones, so you can look things up while you're at a restaurant (or even at the oden counter at the 7-11). You can find them at shinkansen.com. I can add more mobile food glossaries if there's any interest, but those seemed like the most useful ones to start with.

This is my first posting here, so hi everyone, and thanks Kristin for introducing me. There haven't been any new versions of Rick Kennedy's "Good Tokyo Restaurants", but about one-third of the "Tokyo Q Annual Guide" (latest edition: 2002) is a section called "Good Tokyo Restaurants", filled with Rick's restaurant reviews. (The TQ 2002 guide is technically out of print, as of last month, but still available in some bookstores.) Rick has stopped writing new reviews, and is concentrating on doing other features for Tokyo Q. I've just been thumbing through the 1989 edition of Rick's book, and I was surprised by how few of the restaurants in it have gone out of business. However, because the restaurant scene here has changed so much, most of the places he lists aren't very interesting anymore. Restaurants that were once cutting-edge are now old fossils. By the way, one restaurant guide not on the list above is ChefMoz (http://chefmoz.org/Japan/Tokyo/); Pat Willener, who used to do the "Tokyo Restaurant Reference" website, has moved on to compiling the ChefMoz lists instead. Another excellent source is Robbie Swinnerton's articles in the Japan Times (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life.htm), although their archive-searching system is a bit clunky. I also wish there was a good Osaka guide. Robb Satterwhite (editor, bento.com & tokyoq.com)