Recent Booze Article

Just throwing out a link to my short article (bilingual: English/Japanese) about alcohol trends in the Tokyo metropolis for KOE magazine.

Recent Booze Article

North-South Korean Border Bombing September 2010

I recently traveled to the tranquil, river-delineated border between North and South Korea. More often than not, my travels take me in search of praiseworthy drink and amenable grub, and this journey was no different.

Very little is known about North Korea's next leader.

It was a beautiful, blue-skied, quiet, uneventful day on the thickly armored 38th parallel. Quite unlike today, the 23rd of November, 2010, when bombs rained on a South Korean island.

But let us not forget that just like the last time something like this happened, the unnecessary yet mostly comfortable stalemate between the increasingly distant Korean brethren will continue for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, the Japanese media is freaking out, much to North Korea's delight. The South, on the other hand, is predictably beside itself with restraint. The Chinese are patiently awaiting a request for comment.

Once again, let us remember that, first and foremost, a war is not about to break out.

The North would never wish for such an outcome. They know that they would lose handily inside of two or three days (read O'Hanlon and Mochizuki, 2003 for more on this).

And the South won't retaliate with anything resembling real force because they know that downtown Seoul would crumble inside of 180 minutes if the North felt that the end was near.

In other words, your sons and daughters serving in the military on the Korean peninsula, Korean or non, are in very little danger--especially when compared (fairly or otherwise) with the other hot-zones of the world. [Our thoughts and hearts go out to the family of the South Korean soldier that was killed by the most recent North Korean provocation.]

The North Korean dictatorial family is in the midst of a leadership baton-pass, and an international scuffle or two helps to shore up the military credentials of the most recent successor from the Kim family.

Daedonggang Beer with
N. Korea in the background.

Jong-un Kim (should be translated as Jeong-eun in English, by the way) is currently being ushered through the ranks of the People's Party so that he is well-positioned if and when his father's health forces him to step aside.

During my recent visit to the border--calmer times which will soon return, then lapse, then return once again--I enjoyed a couple bottles of North Korean beer not even half of a mile from the country where it was produced. And to my surprise, and delight, the beer was definitely worth a second sip.

It was an odd feeling to drink a "Daedonggang" (also spelled Taedonggang) beer while being able to actually see a small, nearly inactive, village where the people had likely never even seen the beverage that I was enjoying. Not that they would be able to afford it if they had. Soju is reportedly far cheaper and domestically preferable anyway, no matter how appetizing the local beer is.

From my vantage point, the North Korean landscape was bizarrely naked. Very little of the lush vegetation waving to the south was present just across the thin river to the north, and the skeletal, gulag-esque buildings were nearly the only insinuations of life available to the southernly eye. All the better to spot people who are trying to escape, apparently. The lifeless shade of brown of the crops to the north contrasted unfavorably with their irrigated neighbors just across the river to the southwest.

It was perhaps a miracle that the beer I was enjoying was as good as it was. Maybe I just benefited from a good batch. At any rate, a blind tasting would likely find three out of four South Korean beer fans choosing it over the local swill.

Let's hope the fresh-blooded North Korean leadership understands that North Korea's future can be secured by a deescalation of tensions and the emergence of a North Korean economy that doesn't depend on or extort outside goodwill. While "Daedonggang" beer isn't going to win any rice lager awards, it may just be a hint of where the time-locked half of the Korean Peninsula could go.

North-South Korean Border Bombing September 2010

I found the colonel!

He's in Jingu Stadium near the center field entrance.

[If you don't know what I'm talking about, please listen to this podcast.]

I found the colonel!

Pricey Watermelon

This a picture of a Densuke watermelon at the Inageya supermarket near here.

I recently read that the first of these black watermelons was auctioned off for 650,000 yen (roughly $6,000) at the beginning of this season.

In that same article I read that supermarkets were selling them for between twenty and thirty thousand yen (200 to 300 dollars), but the ones in Hanakoganei are going for the bargain price of 5,800 yen (about $54).

About 10,000 of these melons were grown on the northern island of Hokkaido this year, so a very limited number are available at any one store.

It looks like a bowling ball...

Pricey Watermelon

Dessert Pizza

This photo isn't very clear, but it's a snapshot of a slice of pizza that I didn't eat the other day.

If you look closely, there's marshmallow and chocolate syrup on there.

I didn't go anywhere near it. Dave ate it.

This was one of the offerings on the lunch buffet at Shakey's in Takadanobaba.

Dessert Pizza

New Shinjuku Burger King

I don't normally get all excited about hamburgers, but I'm so tired of McDonald's and Lotteria that little things like this make me happy.

A new Burger King outlet recently opened near Seibu-Shinjuku station. That's two in Shinjuku (by my count--I'm probably wrong though), and this new outlet, despite marking the border between the train station and the seediest part of the ward (Kabuki-cho), is 100% non-smoking. Well, except for those two tables out front of course.

This place used to be a Lotteria--located only about a hundred meters from the south exit of Seibu-Shinjuku station (go down the stairs, cross over to McDonald's and turn left).

I haven't been in there yet, but I will venture inside soon.

McDonald's still gets my 100 yen every morning when I buy coffee though.

New Shinjuku Burger King

Blue Hawaii by PEPSI

The new Pepsi product, Blue Hawaii, caught my attention when I walked into a convenience store recently.

It's a bit too small to read, but the words under the giant "Blue Hawaii" on the bottle are "pineapple and lemon".

Reminds me of this.

Blue Hawaii by PEPSI

Changwon Starbucks has Smoking Lounge

Changwon city, South Korea, is a rapidly growing city. It sits about 50 minutes west of Busan by bus, and it's one of the only properly planned cities in the country. Canberra, Australia, apparently, was used as a template for the city.

The population is still rather small, but it's attracting jobs and development like few other municipalities. What that happens, the chains come flocking.

This is a picture from the inside of the city's first Starbucks. It's massive. The one thing that I found to be different about this particular shop was the fact that it is the first Starbucks I've seen with my own eyes that has a smoking room in it. I have no idea why Starbucks felt compelled to do that as the Korean citizenry is quite amenable to the idea that smoking should be done outside.

Starbucks outlets in Japan, by all accounts a much more tobacco-friendly nation, have ashtray-equipped tables outside their outlets.

Changwon Starbucks has Smoking Lounge

Papa John's in South Korea!

Imagine my surprise and delight when we discovered a new Papa John's outlet in Haeundae when we were there a couple of weeks ago!

We quickly bundled ourselves up the stairs and sat down for some meat-covered pizza and a side of breadsticks.

Papa John's, my favorite pizza supplier when I was attending university in Ohio, is using former Korean national soccer team coach Guus Hiddink as the face of its movement into the Korean pizza market.

From what I can tell, South Korea has a far wider variety of sit-down pizza joints than Japan does. Most pizza places in Tokyo are delivery establishments led by big names such as Pizza Hut, Domino's and Pizza-La. Shakey's is the only major chain in Tokyo that I can think of that is primarily a pizza restaurant.

I think Papa John's could do well over here if they combine deliveries with a nice restaurant environment. Domino's just opened a shop near Hanakoganei train station that combines the two although I can't comment on how well or poorly the system is working for them.

Anyway, it was very nice to have a box of breadsticks again!

Papa John's in South Korea!

South Korean Beer

This has been going on for quite some time, but I always find it amusing when I go to the supermarket to buy some beer.

My first reaction when I look in the cooler is that beer is much cheaper in Korea than it is in Japan. It has always driven me crazy that I have to pay about 200 yen (two dollars) for a beer brewed in Japan that is only marginally better than a Miller Lite. And it always comes in a can!

In Korea you can generally expect to pay a dollar (1,000 won) for a glass bottle of comparable low-quality beer. Imports, naturally, cost more.

And one way that they keep costs down is the packaging they use in South Korea: plastic bottles.

This is primarily the case if one is looking to buy a 1.6 liter bottle of cheap summer brew, but smaller sizes are also available. So if you’re just visiting Korea, and browsing the aisles of the local grocery store in search of some soft drinks, just remember that you can’t feed everything that comes in a plastic bottle to the kids.

South Korean Beer

Bon Juk (본죽) Rice Porridge Restaurant

Another trend in South Korea, this one of a culinary nature, is the recent proliferation of "juk" restaurants. Juk is rice porridge and is considered to be very healthy.

Since the last time we were in Busan, a company called "Bon Juk" has set up camp at a large number of locations around the city.

When we visited a Bon Juk shop across the street from the DMV in Busan, we had a seafood juk and a beef juk. The picture here is of the seafood juk.

While not flashy, it was quite good (and very filling!).

I wonder if there are any juk shops in Shin-Okubo yet. If not, I imagine that this would go over quite well in Japan. I'd be willing to bet that one pops up somewhere in that part of Shinjuku ward before too long.

Bon Juk (본죽) Rice Porridge Restaurant

Fois Gras with a Side of Primate

Here's the menu that's on display outside a restaurant near Azabu-juban station. Valentine's Day is already here? Yikes.



Not horridly expensive, but just how much ape does one get for 4,500 yen?

Fois Gras with a Side of Primate

"Gamjagol" Restaurant in Shinjuku

Gamjagol (감자골 in Korean; ガムザゴル in Japanese) is a Korean restuarant that we've been to a number of times to eat gamjatang. It's not far from Seibu-Shinjuku station and Kabukicho (three to five minutes on foot).

Gamjagol has many reminders of the Korean-boom plastered across its walls and windows. All the famous faces of Korea's cross-border cultural infusion can be found on various posters and digital printouts that seem to grow both in variety and the amount of wall space that they cover (the walls of the toilets are now decorated as well!).

According to the photos on the walls, Yomiuri Giants first-baseman Lee Seung-yeop has been to the place at least a couple of times. I'm sure that he agrees that this place has good eats.

We routinely get a bowl of dongdong-ju (a type of milky rice-wine) with our gamjatang (potato and pork stew). The stew boils in front of you on a burner that is built into the center of the table. Like many Korean restaurants in the Shin-Okubo area, Gamjagol does Korean food proud, and the bottomless bowls of side dishes (kimchi!) are enough to fill you up before the main course even arrives.

Gamjagol is on the second floor of the building (only a stone's throw from the Shin-Okubo Don Quijote), and one feature that might take some by surprise is that a menu from the restuarant downstairs also sits on the table.

The restaurant downstairs is a chicken joint, and you can have them deliver a plate of yangnyeom fried chicken to your table on the second floor.

I don't recommend calling Domino's to deliver a pie to your table, but that's kind of the same idea. The people downstairs will bring it right up! We often get a plate of chicken to nibble on while we're waiting for our gamjatang to cook (be sure to stir it occasionally).

The vat of veggies and pork above is how gamjatang looks when it's first delivered to the table. You can eat well and have a couple of drinks for 3,000 to 4,000 yen.

For more pictures of the place click here.

"Gamjagol" Restaurant in Shinjuku

B side Restaurant (9th floor of Big Box Takadanobaba)

I've been talking about food a lot lately, so I might as well stick with the theme.

Tonight we went to a new restaurant in Takadanobaba called "B side". Big Box, the concrete behemoth that stands guard over Takadanobaba train station, received a makeover this summer and reopened on October 19th, 2007. Those of us who had been there will recall that the place was dingy and had very little going for it. I used to use the toilet there on occasion, but that was about it (the toilet paper was clean).

Well now Seibu has smacked fresh wallpaper over all the dinginess, so everything should appear clean for a year or two. The elevator even apologized to us by flashing the message, "Sorry, this elevator is crowded." Too true.

Up to the 9th floor we went to have a look at the new tenants. They now have a couple of izakaya's up there which is an intelligent switch from the large, 70's era conference rooms that probably got very little attention. Takadanobaba is a town chock-full of students, and cheap eats are the way to go. Big Box finally figured that out.

We opted for the non-izakaya place that is up there. As mentioned before, it goes by the name of B side and it occupies the south side of the building, so you can see lots of apartment buildings and the JR line tracks from the seats near the windows.

Other positives? Let's see...they have Gargery Stout on tap! Gargery is a Japanese microbrew (?) that isn't half bad although I prefer their Estella (yes, the glasses are really shaped like that. If you need to take a leak while drinking a Gargery, just put the glass in your shirt's breast pocket).



B side is striving to be one of the pricier options in town. The Gargery was reasonably priced at 700 yen per glass (it's near 1,000 yen at my local watering hole), but nothing else was. There were so many things wrong about the place that I don't know where to start...




This was my dinner, beef stew. It set me back 1,800 yen. Wouldn't mind the price so much if it came with something. It didn't. A la carte doncha know. Had to pay extra for bread. And just to give you an idea of the portion I was afforded, I positioned my bread on the edge of the plate. Yeah, I found the bottom of the bowl pretty quickly...

Wouldn't mind the price so much if it tasted better than instant stew. It didn't.

The presentation was nice, but I was shocked by the flavor. The beef stew at Jonathan's family restaurant chain is twice as good (and half the price).

And Yong-nam's pork was about as good as I usually make it. Which begs the question, "Why should we come to your restaurant if you cook about as well as I do?" (The answer should be obvious to those of you who have sampled my cuisine.)

What gets me is that this restaurant obviously hopes to be a fancy alternative for the business people of the area. They got the jazz music right, and everyone is dressed up really nicely, but they serve soft drinks with straws and the expensive cutlery is teamed with paper napkins (much like at our place). And the cherry-colored wood ceiling near the windows? Nope, it's just wallpaper. I could go on, but I already sound foolish enough...

So all together, we spent more than 6,000 yen on McDonald's-level food and two glasses of beer. I recommend giving them some time to sort things out; maybe they'll figure out how to cook in a year or so.

Even then, I'd highly recommend taking your wallet and your stomach to Shakey's Pizza which is just up the street.

B side Restaurant (9th floor of Big Box Takadanobaba)

Dinner

The Pizza Hut guy showed up with this pie earlier this evening.

It's the "Gourmet Pizza" outfitted with a "Cheezy Roll" crust. The doughy rolls around the perimeter of the pizza are filled with, you guessed it, cheese.

It was good. I don't really remember what was on top of the pizza except that there was no seafood. I requested that explicitly.

All I recall from dinner is the fact that every slice was followed by a couple of cheezy rolls.

Dinner

Big Y's Cafe

A bunch of us went to a good bar down between Motomachi-Chuukagai and Ishikawacho stations (not far from Yokohama and right next to Chinatown) last night.

I partook in the devouring of one of those chickens that are roasted in the rotisserie out front. It was good! Several other items on the menu are delicious as well, but I will definitely go back for the chicken.

Guinness on tap and a dartboard in the corner, so I was happy.

If you have a chance to stop by, I highly recommend it!

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Big Y's Cafe

No More Coca-Cola

South Korea has made a very smart investment in its' children's long-term health by deciding to severely restrict the sale of junk food in schools.

I wonder what would have to happen in America for the government to impose a similar ban on schools. This would mostly be related to vending machines on school premises, but there are also school districts that have/had fast food (like Taco Bell) in them.

Apparently, legislation (in the United States) was penned that would allow the government to author nutritional guidelines for what food and drink could be should at a public educational facility, but that attempt was defeated by the Senate Agriculture Committee back in 2003 or 2004. I'm not sure whether anything else of significance has happened since then to get that initiative, or a similar one, back on track.

Congrats to South Korea for getting it right!

No More Coca-Cola

The King is Back

Burger King has returned to Tokyo, and it can be found in the B1 dining (patio) area at iLand Tower in the skyscraper district of Shinjuku.

Below is a photo of the patio dining area that is about a five minute walk from Shinjuku Station west exit.

The King is Back

George!

Hey! I've been looking all over for you, young man! Just what do you think you're doing in Inageya?

George!

AP Poaches Another One of my Stories

Yes, the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts phenomenon has been an ongoing sensation (click here and/or here) on this silly little blog for quite some time. But the Associated Press is a little slow in stealing my thunder [Newsvine].

AP Poaches Another One of my Stories