PS (added to main post) There were no stalls selling kabayaki (grilled eel) — but we did find unagi at the camp site... | Continue »

Nobody goes to Fuji Rock for the food... but everyone has to eat, whether you're there for one day or four. This year, as always, the range of food stalls was wider than ever. We enjoyed local specialties, such as charcoal-grilled ayu sweetfish — conveniently located right next to the... | Continue »

To call Nozaki Sakaten a sake specialist is an understatement — it has a selection to rival anywhere in town. Better than that, though, it's comfortable, casual and very affordable. The sake is available in various sizes, from tasting glasses to full tokkuri flasks. It's also cheerful, approachable — unlike... | Continue »

Tomorrow in the Japan Times, a new favourite osteria delivers outstanding Italian regional cuisine and a great cellar to go with it. Here's an image to whet your appetite... | Continue »

Sausages and fizzy beer... ...and the heady perfume (some would use another less complimentary noun) of durian... That can only mean one thing: the Laos Festival was back in Yoyogi Park last Saturday. It's much less crowded and commercial than the Thai festival (which took place the previous weekend). And... | Continue »

A spare hour or so in the mid-afternoon and I'm hungry. The lunch break is over and most restaurants have their doors shut. No worries — they stick to a more traditional rhythm at the city's classic soba houses. It's a great chance to get over to one of my... | Continue »

A glowing portal on the sand, almost Fellini-inspired... ...an open-air beach cinema. Call it a sand-flea pit, if you like. ... and inside a a simple screen flapping in the sea breeze. Mt. Fuji just visible in the glow of the gloaming... The show begins! Most appropriately, it's Nuovo Cinema... | Continue »

The last few years there's been a bona fide boom for curry-pan. These tasty little savoury snacks — sometimes rendered in English as 'curry bread' — have been around for a century or more, but there's been a remarkable revival in recent years. And why not? Done well, they're exceptionally... | Continue »

This was the setting, the verandah of a modest tea... | Continue »

So what do you do when you get to the Red Brick Warehouse and find the queue to get into bills stretching around the block? There are some ideas here and here. This is my favourite place in the neighbourhood — well, back closer to Bashamichi Station — the funky... | Continue »

A lot of the kind of places I enjoy most don't bother with menus — not the kind that you peruse at table, anyway. Half of the fun is craning your neck, exercising your retinas, and decyphering all those kanji characters ;–) If you're lucky, there may be a blackboard... | Continue »