I’ve been threatening to start posting reports of our meals in Seoul for more than a week now. Here, finally, is the first one. I will remind you that after our week in Tokyo (meal reports from which were posted chronologically), we went to Kyoto for a few days and from there to Seoul (and from there to Delhi). I’m jumping past the Kyoto meal reports just to mix things up a bit. I’m going to post a few Seoul reports mixed in with a Delhi report or two and then I’ll go back and do the Kyoto reports. And these Seoul reports are not going to be in chronological order either. This first report, for instance, is of lunch eaten on our third day in Seoul. We had an appointment in the afternoon in Sindang-dong and got off the subway a few stops earlier to eat at one of my favourite places in Seoul: Gwangjang Market. I’ve reported at great length on meals at the market before (see here, here, here and here) and will almost certainly do so again. Yes, it’s a bit of a Seoul cliche at this point but I do love the energy of the place, and across my visits had not had a single bad meal there. I am happy to report that that streak was not broken on this visit either. Continue reading
Rampur Double Cask
My previous booze reviews this month have been of whiskies that were peated to one degree or another: relatively mild (the Nikka Pure Malt White) to not-so-mild (the Ardbeg Corryvreckan and the Caol Ila Feis Ile 2016). To close out the month, let’s do a whisky that’s not peated at all. This is the Double Cask from Rampur, the Indian malt whisky distillery from the Radico Khaitan group. I’d lost sight of them after reviewing their original (?) release, the Rampur Select a few years ago. In the intervening period they’ve certainly expanded their portfolio of releases quite dramatically: their website lists five regular releases and four limited edition releases. This Double Cask is one of the regular releases. As per the distillery’s website, it is made by marrying spirit from American oak bourbon barrels and European Oak sherry casks (butts? re-made hogsheads or barrels?). So, not double maturation. As to what the ratio of the cask types in the vatting is, I have no idea. Well, I don’t purchase very much whisky any more but for some reason I couldn’t resist when I saw this bottle in the liquor department of my Costco last week. Let’s see if my weakness did me a favour or did me in. Continue reading
Godavari, Summer 2025
I’d said last week that if our weekend plans held I’d have another review from St. Paul this week (following last week’s look at lunch at Zao Bakery + Cafe). But our plans didn’t hold. The rainy weather on Saturday had us feeling too lazy to go out and the place we’d wanted to go to is not open for lunch on Sundays. But I do have a Twin Cities meal report for you anyway. I had an annual appointment in Eden Prairie last Friday and what is becoming a bit of a tradition, I ate lunch after at Godavari—currently my favourite Indian restaurant in the Twin Cities Metro. I was hoping to eat another lunch thali (having enjoyed it last year) but it turns out they don’t do lunch thalis on Fridays. No, on Fridays it’s a lunch buffet. I swallowed my disappointment and picked up a plate. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Caol Ila 12, for Feis Ile 2016
Back in January of this year, I reviewed Caol Ila’s bottling for the 2017 iteration of Feis Ile, the Islay whisky festival. Now that I’m on the verge of finishing that bottle, it’s time to open another Caol Ila, and it may as well be another one bottled for Feis Ile. We’ll go back one year in time to 2016. Like the 2017 after it, the 2016 release was also 12 years old and without a vintage statement. While the 2017 release was to be double-mature in ex-amoroso sherry casks (I think previously used for the Talisker Distillers Edition), the 2016 was put together from a refill American oak hogsheads and European bodega sherry butts. Now as to whether the second type refers to European oak butts or merely specifies that these were butts actually used in sherry bodegas (as opposed to being reconstructed and “seasoned” with sherry expressly for the purpose of whisky maturation), I don’t know. I’m sure somebody else does—and if you’re that somebody, please write in below. Okay, let’s get to it. Continue reading
Breakfast Sushi at Toyosu Market II: Sushi Ichiba (Tokyo, June 2025)
Here, as promised, is my last meal report from Tokyo. We left for Kyoto by train before lunch on a Monday—almost exactly a week after we’d arrived. Our original plan had involved a light breakfast at home and then a bento-based lunch on the train. Well, the bento-based lunch on the train still happened (courtesy bentos from Ekibenya Matsuri at Tokyo Station) but the older boy and I had decided the night before that, if we managed to wake up early enough, we would head back to Toyosu Market for a farewell meal of breakfast sushi. So it came to pass. The missus and the younger boy elected to stay at home and eat sandos they’d purchased from the Mitsukoshi department store in Nihonbashi the previous day, while the two of us repeated our first Tokyo metro trip from the day before. This time we were headed not to Dokoro Yamazaki but to the establishment right next door: Ichiba. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Zao Bakery + Cafe (St. Paul, MN)
It’s been two months since my last Twin Cities restaurant report (of two lunches at two locations of El Super Taco) but here I am again. I have for you today a look at a restaurant we’ve been wanting to eat at for the last seven months: Zao Bakery + Cafe. They opened on University Ave. in St. Paul (where else?) just short of Dale last December and were rapturously received by the masses for their self-service offerings of Chinese buns and dumplings and other snacks as well as a limited offering of noodles, noodle soups and congees from the kitchen. These are all things we enjoy very much and hence our desire to eat there. Why it took so long, I can’t quite explain but we did finally get there last weekend. And I am glad to report that we were not disappointed in the slightest by it. Herewith the details. Continue reading
Shabusen (Tokyo, June 2025)
Our tour of the major Japanese food genres arrived at a new stop at our last dinner in Tokyo: shabu shabu. I have to confess this is not my favourite genre of Japanese food but the missus loves it. As it happens, after this meal, the boys are big fans too. We ate shabu shabu at Shabusen in Ginza; they also have a branch in Yokohama. In Ginza they are now located on the 8th floor of the Exit Melsa building. They don’t take reservations but they’re open from 3 pm onwards for dinner on weekends and so we hoped that we wouldn’t have to wait too long around 7 pm. As it happened, we didn’t have to wait at all. It’s a large restaurant with two separate dining rooms and they had four seats together open in the smaller one. We sat down and got down to business. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Ardbeg Corryvreckan, 2011 Release (Again)
Here is a review of a whisky that I have already reviewed, albeit five years ago. I don’t mean just that it’s another Ardbeg Corryvreckan review: it’s a review of a bottle released in the same year as that previous bottle: 2011. The Corryvreckan was then just a couple of years old. I had loved my first taste of it in 2009 or 2010 or whenever it was and I quite liked the 2011 release when I first reviewed it in 2020. I’m curious to see what I’ll make of it now (I’m not re-reading my previous notes until I get done with my notes on this one). I’m also curious about the status of current Corryvreckan. It’s still part of Ardbeg’s core lineup, along with other mainstays, the 10 yo and the Uigeadail—and also the newer An Oa and Wee Beastie—but I don’t think I’ve had any Corryvreckan released in the last decade. Those of you who have: do you find it to be still more or less as it was? The makeup seems to be the same, with ex-bourbon and ex-French oak casks in the vatting. Do let me know your thoughts on more recent releases. Okay, let’s get to this one. Continue reading
Taimeiken (Tokyo, June 2025)
I’d hoped to finish my Tokyo reports this week. Thanks to some unexpected chaos at home—with two appliances suddenly requiring repair—I’ve not had time to get to all of that. As a result there are still two reports to come after this one, which covers lunch at a famous yoshoku restaurant in Tokyo: Taimeiken. Taimeiken has been around for a while—I believe the current owner/chef is from the third generation of his family. Among their claims to fame is their omuraisu or omurice, specifically their Tampopo omurice, which was developed by the restaurant for Juzo Itami’s film Tampopo in 1985. My good friend John B. was my roommate in graduate school for a few years and Tampopo was one of his very favourite films. As a result I think I’ve seen the film (in whole and in parts) several times. I wish I could say we ate at Taimeiken in tribute to John; the truth, however, is that the younger boy, having seen many videos of the preparation on Youtube, had really wanted to eat omurice in Japan and Taimeiken seemed like a good place to eat it as they serve a full spectrum of yoshoku dishes. Continue reading
Manten-Sushi, Nihonbashi (Tokyo, June 2025)
One of the decisions we’d made ahead of our trip to Japan was that we would take the boys with us to every meal we ate out. This meant we were not going to do meals that were either very expensive or which were likely to feature too many things that they might not eat—they have pretty wide-ranging palates compared to most Minnesotan kids their age but they’re not exactly omnivores. Both these things therefore ruled out high-end omakase and kaiseki meals. (And, in any case, I also did not want to spend any time chasing hard to get reservations at places where you need introductions and special handshakes and so forth.) But this is still Tokyo we’re talking about: an accessible sushi omakase at the affordable end of the market is still going to blow out of the water any comparably priced meal in the US and challenge much more expensive places. So it proved to be at our dinner at the Nihonbashi location of Manten-Sushi. Continue reading
Nikka Pure Malt White, “Salty & Peaty”
The last whisky review I posted before our trip to Japan (and our subsequent summer travels) began was of the 2013 release of the Hakushu Sherry Cask. The first review I have for you now that our travels are over is of another Japanese whisky, the Nikka Pure Malt White. I acquired this bottle many years ago, along with the Pure Malt Black (which I reviewed almost exactly a year ago). A friend picked both up from the duty free at Reykjavik airport in 2012 for all of $22 each. Rub your eyes and read that sentence again. Where the Black was dubbed “Smoky & Mellow” this one bears the words “Salty & Peaty” on the rear label. Where the Black contained a high dose of peated whisky from Nikkas’s Yoichi distillery, the White was described by them as “made mainly with Islay, Scotland type malt”. Now as to whether “Islay, Scotland type malt” means it actually contains Islay whisky or whether it contains whisky made in that style—perhaps from peated barley from Islay—I have no idea. Anyway, I’m looking forward to finally tasting it. Continue reading
Kyushu Jangara, Akihabara (Tokyo, June 2025)
As I said in an earlier post, our main ramen desires in Tokyo were to eat good versions of our favourite ramen styles and, as far as possible, to do so in an environment that did not cause stress. Our first stop, at Ginza Kagari’s Roppongi Hills branch, gave us fantastic tori paitan ramen with zero stress (ordering via a multilingual ticket machine that took credit cards; very easygoing atmosphere inside). Our second stop, at Ramenya Toy Box in Arakawa, gave us fabulous shoyu (and pretty good shio) ramen but a little more stress in the ordering process (courtesy a Japanese-only ticket machine that accepted only cash) and a relatively austere dining experience. Our third stop, at Koukaibou in Monzen Nakacho, gave us outstanding pork bone and seafood ramen and a warmer experience. Our fourth and final stop was at the Akihabara location of Kyushu Jangara. They specialize in tonkotsu ramen and I am pleased to say that not only was the ramen very good, but the experience was also very easy. Here are the details. Continue reading
Yakiniku Horumon Arai-ya, Shibuya (Tokyo, June 2025)
Our fifth day in Tokyo was the first day of our trip on which no sushi was eaten (there was to be only one more such). We’d eaten ramen for lunch at Koukaibou in Monzen Nakacho and after lunch we’d gone back to Asakusa to visit the kitchen stores in Kappabashi St.. There I purchased a couple of kitchen knives at Kama Asa; and we also purchased some excellent nori from Numatanori. We then visited the Sumida Hokusai Museum (small but well worth a stop) and walked home from there to rest under air conditioning. The evening’s plan was to head out to Shibuya, wander a bit and eat some dinner. It was a fun evening—though the Shibuya Scramble may be the stupidest tourist attraction in the world—anchored by a very good dinner. Continue reading
July/August 2025
It’s been a very busy month and a half. We left for Japan towards the end of June, visiting Tokyo and Kyoto. From Japan we made our way to South Korea for a week in Seoul. From Seoul we traveled to Delhi. Finally, a little over two weeks after that, we returned to Minnesota, having literally gone all the way around the world.
In Japan we were tourists; in Seoul the missus and I were working; in Delhi we were visiting family and helping sort out a number of issues with my parents’ health. Through it all we ate quite well. I’m almost halfway through my reports from Japan; there’s a bunch from Seoul to follow as well. We didn’t eat out quite as much in Delhi but I have a few more from there as well to come. I know I say this after every trip and then fail to follow through, but I’m going to try to get these reports done as quickly as I can. What this means is that for the next few months you can probably expect four restaurant reports each week—with Twin Cities metro reports returning soon as well. You can also expect my weekly booze reviews—which were on hiatus in July—to start back up next week. Continue reading
Koukaibou (Tokyo, June 2025)
It’s an obvious thing to say but bears repeating anyway: there is excellent food to be found all over Tokyo. Why does it bear repeating if it’s an obvious thing to say? Well, there’s a foodie tendency to go far out of one’s way to eat at the purported “best” of some kind of food. In a city like Tokyo—or Hong Kong—I would suggest that there’s no reason to do this. For one thing, there’s no singular “best” anything. In Tokyo the baseline for everything is very high, and while you’re not guaranteed a transcendent meal at a random place you might walk into off the street, the chances of having a bad meal are pretty low. And excellent iterations of pretty much every kind of food can be found pretty close to wherever you are staying in the city. We were—as I’ve mentioned before—within 20 minutes walk of Monzen Nakacho/Mon Naka. We had excellent yakitori there at Hinai Stand; and we also had what was my favourite ramen outing of the trip at Koukaibou. Continue reading
Sushi Hinatomaru, Kaminarimon (Tokyo, June 2025)
Back to my reports from our brief trip to Japan, back to sushi in Tokyo. I’ve previously reported on three sushi meals: dinner on our first day at Yayoi Sushi; breakfast on the second day at Dokoro Yamazaki at Toyosu Market; and lunch on the third day at Yoshinuzushi Honten. No surprise: we ate sushi on our fourth day as well. Lunch that day had been outstanding ramen at Ramenya Toy Box. We’d then repaired to the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno and spent the first half of the afternoon there. The plan originally had been to go from there to Asakusa, visit the Senso-ji temple, wander Kappabashi (the kitchenware street) and then eat an early sushi dinner before heading back to the apartment. But this was our third scorcher of a day in a row and we decided to rest under air conditioning at home during the afternoon and then head to Asakusa in the evening when it would be a little cooler. Senso-ji is lit up in the evening and is less crowded—both of which sounded good to us. Looking around on Tabelog for places to eat sushi near the temple, I’d already identified the location of Hinatomaru near the temple’s Kaminarimon Gate and that is where we went. Continue reading
Ramenya Toy Box (Tokyo, June 2025)
Here is my second ramen report from Tokyo in June. I’ve previously reported on glorious bowls of tori paitan (creamy chicken) ramen at the Roppongi Hills branch of Ginza Kagari. Here now is a quick look at some more glorious bowls of ramen, this time at Ramenya Toy Box in Arakwawa City. While I had been sure that we would not have much trouble getting seated at Ginza Kagari’s satellite branch, I was not very confident about our chances at Toy Box, which has neither any branches nor very many seats: just seven or eight around a small counter in a tiny dining room. But it’s not just the small number of seats that makes it a challenge; it is the fact that they have quite a bit of acclaim as one of the very best purveyors of shoyu ramen in all of Tokyo. And they don’t open for very long: 11-3 for lunch and 6-9 for dinner. Add to that the fact that we were a party of four and the odds of our being seated together seemed somewhere between slim to none if we were to just waltz up to the place for dinner. So we didn’t. Continue reading
Katsukichi, Nihonbashi (Tokyo, June 2025)
Udon? Check. Sushi? Check, check, check. Ramen? Check. Yakitori? Check. Next up on our tour of key genres of Japanese cuisine was tonkatsu or katsu. After lunch at Yoshinozushi Honten we had wandered Nihonbashi for a while and then headed to the Yanaka neighbourhood in Taito City where we wandered some more. We then cooled off in our apartment before heading back to Nihonbashi for dinner. Our port of call was a branch of Katsukichi. Founded in 1958, they also have locations in Shibuya, Marunouchi, and Hibiya. In Nihonbashi they are one of the many restaurants located in the Takashiyama S.C building, up on the 6th floor. None of the restaurants have any English signage but it wasn’t very difficult to figure out which the katsu specialist was and we were quickly at our table. Here’s how the meal went. Continue reading