Second floor seating area A unique Starbucks opened in Kyoto on June 30, 2017. This is the first Starbucks in the world that has a noren curtain at the entrance and a tatami-mat seating area. It is located on Nineizaka, near one of the world heritage sites, Kiyomizudera. The opening of the café was international news. One and a half months later, the café...
This ballpoint pen, called FriXion, was a huge hit five years ago in Japan. Today it’s still a steady seller because of one special attribute: it can erase mistakes. It took the venerable pen maker Pilot 30 years to come up with a pen that erases with ease and leaves no marks behind. The little rubber eraser at the end of the pen works...
For 13 beautiful minutes, filmmaker Hirokazu Kishida takes us into the world of Sakurada, a kaiseki restaurant in Kyoto that is about to close its doors forever. The short film Sakurada: Zen Chef focuses on the last two days of this two Michelin star restaurant, and in the process, gives us a hint of the Zenlike life of restaurant owner and chef Isuzu Sakurada....
An awe-inspiring Noh production took place earlier this fall at Fushimi Inari-taisha, a shrine in Kyoto. The play was performed at dusk in the hopes that it would heighten the audience’s awareness in all five senses. The theme was “see the invisible.” The troupe wanted to attract a new generation of Noh fans, so it chose the temple as an attractive place to broadcast...
An artistic renewal project at a 600-year-old temple gets a dose of youthful energy In the heart of Kyoto, on the grounds of a serene Zen temple, a young woman transforms sliding panels, known as fusuma, into vibrant works of art. Photos by Akihito Yoshida Yuki Murabayashi has been working at the temple as a resident artist since 2011. Her life is a mix...
“Lately, at the high-end shops in Ginza and Roppongi, it’s all fixed courses. No matter who the customers are, they get served the same sushi in the same order. Repeating the same thing over and over? I think that has to be a bore.” Tatsuro Shibuya has a 30-year career as a sushi chef. His shop is about a 40-minute drive from central Tokyo...
How does Seattle stack up against other American cities when it comes to sushi? We asked several people with experience here and in other cities to find out. “I think we’re fourth,” says Executive Chef Taichi Kitamura of Sushi Kappo Tamura. “We’re behind L.A., New York and San Francisco for a combination of reasons. But we’re close.” Kitamura says some of those factors include...
A Laid-Back Maid Café in the Middle of Bustling Osaka Osaka, Japan’s second city, takes its food seriously. Case in point: even the food at its maid cafés is good! Maid cafés are well-known for being about entertainment first, with food often being a distant second. At eMaid, in the lively Namba area of downtown Osaka, this is not the case. This maid café...
Japan wasn’t always a destination for delicious steaks and meat dishes. For much of its history, Japan consumed very little meat based on Buddhist influence, which forbade meat eating. But the wave of modernization in the late 1800s changed all that. Soon, meat was not only accepted by mainstream Japanese, it was being prepared in new and different ways by applying traditional Japanese cooking...
Ozaki Gyu has captured the imagination of chefs around the world. This unique brand of wagyu doesn’t smell, is beautifully marble, has a smooth, rich flavor, and is incredibly juicy. Ozaki is the surname of the farmer who has been improving the quality of this beef for more than 30 years: Muneharu Ozaki. The beef is named after him, just like some famous wines...
