This past weekend was my brother’s and his wife’s birthdays; they share the same birthday. They also happened to have gotten married on their birthday last year. So, for their first anniversary and combined birthdays, I planned a small feast for them. Continue Reading →
I’ve mentioned before that I’m a pretty obsessive pre-holiday researcher. In order to best decide where my wife S and I should eat at when planning an overseas trip, I’ll spend weeks combing through books, magazines and websites. I’ll also email friends whose palates I trust. Earlier this year, I had purchased a short dining guide to Tokyo called Transit Tokyo, written by Yoshikage Kajiwara. The book contains 70 recommendations for affordable places to dine in Japan’s capitol — no expensive Michelin-starred restaurants in this guide, just simple places that serve awesome grub fit for every day dining. Continue Reading →
Choosing a hotel in a big city is always a tricky thing. Do you choose style over substance or substance over style. Do you choose convenience over cost? Do you choose a hotel with great F&B outlets or just something with a comfortable room, preferring to eat and drink elsewhere? If the city has multiple great neighbourhoods, how do you decide which one you want to stay in? All hard questions and for each traveler, what qualifies as the best hotel is entirely subjective. For me, right now, my favourite place to stay in Tokyo has to be the Capitol Hotel Tokyu. Continue Reading →
I’ve known Hossan Leong for quite a while now. I really admire his determination and his passion, both on and off stage/screen. When it was announced that he’d be directing a Dream Academy production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company, I was really thrilled. I’m a big musical theatre fan and Stephen Sondheim is my all-time favourite composer-lyricist. Company is opening here in Singapore on 1 November 2012 and will run until 11 November (please, please, please support Hossan and Dream Academy and buy tickets for this show). Hossan was kind enough to chat with me a bit about Company, Sondheim and French food. Continue Reading →
When I took my beautiful wife S to Tokyo to celebrate her birthday in March, because we only had three days in town, we had to very carefully curate our dining choices. While we did visit an old favourite, most of the restaurants we visited were new to us, including two sushi joints that we’d been meaning to try for years. One was a much-ballyhooed three Michelin-starred place in Ginza that is regularly discussed on forums like Chowhound and which many punters like to claim is the best sushi restaurant in Tokyo. The other is a much more modest (and much livelier) place in Yotsuya that has no Michelin stars and is rarely mentioned in Western or English-language media. Amazingly–although some Japanese friends tell me I shouldn’t have been surprised–we left the three Michelin-starred restaurant feeling very ripped off and extremely underwhelmed. But, the meal we had at Sushi Sho (also sometimes spelled Sushishou), the cultish little joint just east of Shinjuku, delivered what I can honestly say was the single greatest sushi meal of both my life and my wife’s. S has since been describing the experience to friends as “life-changing sushi.” Continue Reading →
Every time my wife S and I go to Kyoto, one of our all-time favourite cities, we discover new things to tell friends and family (and you) about. One of the single most popular posts on this blog is our 2009 Kyoto Guide. Recently, we’ve been blogging about some singularly spectacular things to do in Kyoto, such as staying in the city’s most unique ryokan-style resort, exploring Arashiyama, learning zen meditation, or taking a cooking class to learn some great Japanese home cooking techniques. The following are just a few more recommendations to add to my always growing list of hot picks for Kyoto – awesome things to see, do, eat or buy in this amazing city. Continue Reading →
One of the things that all visitors do in Kyoto is visit temples. It is, after all, an ancient capital city with over 1600 temples. What a lot of first-time visitors don’t know is that many of these are actually subtemples, i.e. temples housed within larger temple complexes. One of the biggest such complexes is Myoshinji, located in Kyoto’s Northwest. It is home to around 50 sub-temples, one of which is well worth the visit, not because it’s the oldest or most beautiful. It’s worth visiting Shunkoin temple because of its charming and articulate Vice-Abbot, the Reverend Takafumi Kawakami, who leads daily classes in Zen Buddhist meditation. Continue Reading →
During our most recent trip to Kyoto, my wife S and I had the pleasure of staying in a gorgeous resort in the Arashiyama region. But whether or not you stay overnight in this area, Arashiyama is well worth visiting. Its history as a popular destination stretches back to the Heian Period (794-1185). Today, its combination of stunning natural landscapes, Tenryuji Temple, postcard-worthy bamboo groves, and a treasure trove of small restaurants and shops make this far Western part of Kyoto (among domestic travellers) the second most visited tourist area in Kyoto. Continue Reading →
When you stay in a traditional ryokan in Japan, it’s almost always assumed that you’ll be having dinner on property. In many cases, the price of your dinner is automatically included as part of your room rate. And you simply don’t have the option of bowing out of the meal. At HOSHINOYA Kyoto, however, because the resort is both more modern and flexible in its packages and because it caters to guests that often stay for multiple days, guests can choose whether or not they wish to dine on premises. In my opinion though, if one stays at this gorgeous property, it would be a travesty not to have dinner in HOSHINOYA’s restaurant and to taste the truly exceptional cuisine of Chef Ichiro Kubota. Continue Reading →
Ever since the HOSHINOYA resort opened in the scenic Arashiyama region of Kyoto in December 2009, I’ve been dying to check into this very special property. While Kyoto, one of my favourite cities in the world, is home to both modern (Western) hotels and ultra-pricey, ultra-exclusive traditional ryokans, HOSHINOYA is unique in that it offers the best of both worlds, in a resort setting unlike any other. Continue Reading →
A few weeks back, I updated my page in which I list my favourite tools. The list pretty much covers my camera gear (plus the Olympus OM-D I don’t own yet but dream of daily), my favourite knives and knifemakers, and the equipment I use for sous vide cooking. While I previously championed the SousVide Supreme, these days, my wife S and I are lucky enough to be using the coolest, smallest (and comparatively affordable) chamber vacuum packer on the market, the Vacmaster VP112EU, and the Addelice swid, a beautifully designed (and also comparatively affordable) immersion circulator. Continue Reading →