Tokyo

Locale: California Dreaming (in the Heart of Tokyo)

“Can I have some wine? I’m a little sober now,” calls chef Katy Cole to sommelier and server Ben Ward-Perkins over the buzz of conversation and clinking cutlery. We’re two hours into the brunch service. He fills her glass, and she tips it back, taking a quick gulp. “I didn’t know it was going to be that kind of morning,” she says, laughing. “I’m in a good place.” It may be drab and drizzly outside in the backstreets of Meguro, but it is always warm and sunny inside Locale, Cole’s little farm-to-table restaurant.

Tokyo

The Perfect Spring Day: Food, Flowers and Fun in Tokyo

It snowed in Tokyo on March 22 – a wet, rain-like snow that puddled as soon as it touched the ground, but snow nonetheless. It was un-springlike as the week before was sunny. Early spring is sly and tricky here. One moment the kawazu-zakura have blanketed trees in pink popcorn blooms, the next moment it’s cloudy skies and planning hotpot dinners all over again. But it is glorious when temperatures aren’t whipsawing wildly from hot to freezing, when spring finally deigns to show up in the form of balmy, blue-skied days and flowers blooming everywhere. Spring days like this are beautiful for cycling in Tokyo. Fresh air, warm sun and, best of all, no freezing fingers and ears when you’re on a bike.

Tokyo

CB on the Road: The Art of Kakigori at Nara’s Housekibaco

Sōsuke Hirai’s hands tilt this way and that as the machine whirrs, raining large, fine flakes of ice into a bowl. He pauses the machine, lightly pats the ice and taps the bowl on the counter, allowing the ice to sink and compress. A swirl of persimmon tea syrup is added to the ice. Then it goes back under the machine for a second ice shower. Over this, several twirls of a cinnamon-infused milk syrup, a few tea-flavored meringue cookies, two large soup spoons of rum-spiked zabaglione. More ice. His hands gently coax the shavings into an elegant dome.

Tokyo

CB on the Road: The Art of Kakigori at Nara’s Housekibaco

Sōsuke Hirai’s hands tilt this way and that as the machine whirrs, raining large, fine flakes of ice into a bowl. He pauses the machine, lightly pats the ice and taps the bowl on the counter, allowing the ice to sink and compress. A swirl of persimmon tea syrup is added to the ice. Then it goes back under the machine for a second ice shower. Over this, several twirls of a cinnamon-infused milk syrup, a few tea-flavored meringue cookies, two large soup spoons of rum-spiked zabaglione. More ice. His hands gently coax the shavings into an elegant dome.

Tokyo

CB on the Road: Glorious Gelato at Aomori’s Natura Due

On a warm August morning two years ago in an orchard somewhere west of Aomori City in Japan’s Tōhoku region (about 4 hours from Tokyo by train), we watched blackcurrant farmer Kenji Hayashi scoop dark magenta gelato into paper cups. Ribena had nothing on this. It tasted like summer incarnate, an electric blackcurrant explosion tempered with sugar and brightened with lemon juice. We ate greedily, trying to finish our gelato before the heat turned it into a puddle. “So, how did you make the gelato?” We asked him. “I met Ayumi-chan at a bar,” he replied. He’s not alone. This is apparently how Ayumi Chiba of Gelato Natura meets all her fruit suppliers: drinking at bars.

Tokyo

The Perfect Spring Day: Food, Flowers and Fun in Tokyo

It snowed in Tokyo on March 22 – a wet, rain-like snow that puddled as soon as it touched the ground, but snow nonetheless. It was un-springlike as the week before was sunny. Early spring is sly and tricky here. One moment the kawazu-zakura have blanketed trees in pink popcorn blooms, the next moment it’s cloudy skies and planning hotpot dinners all over again. But it is glorious when temperatures aren’t whipsawing wildly from hot to freezing, when spring finally deigns to show up in the form of balmy, blue-skied days and flowers blooming everywhere. Spring days like this are beautiful for cycling in Tokyo. Fresh air, warm sun and, best of all, no freezing fingers and ears when you’re on a bike.

Tokyo

Soul Food House: Southern Comfort in Tokyo

LaTonya Whitaker’s favorite food is catfish, but the dish she loves cooking most at Soul Food House is the gravy chicken and waffle. Craving country-fried chicken and waffles one day but not having the space for both, she simply – in her words – “mashed it up and put the gravy on.” It’s not our first rodeo at this restaurant in Azabu-Juban. This time, on LaTonya’s recommendation, we tackled a plate of waffles larger than our faces, palm-sized pieces of country-fried chicken on a bed of mashed potatoes, the whole affair drenched in gravy and a small pitcher of maple syrup alongside. It’s unabashedly over-the-top. You have to eat fast, or risk the whole thing turning into stodge.