Featured

You can touch but you can’t eat: We made food replicas from wax in Asakusa, and you can too!

If you’ve ever spent any time in Japan, you’ve probably been to at least one restaurant whose front window is full of surprisingly realistic food samples. In fact, they’re realistic enough that if you’re jet-lagged and starving, like my first day in Osaka, you too may have wondered, “How do they keep the food from rotting and smelling?!” Obviously, the “samples” aren’t samples of food but wax replicas made to look as delicious (or maybe even more delicious) than the food served inside.

But where do those food samples comes from? Well, there are a variety of shops that make them — both for restaurants and people who just love replica food. But at Ganso Shokuhin Sample-ya, you can make your own! We recently headed to Asakusa and created several of our own food samples. Join us after the jump to read about how we made lettuce and tempura food samples, and watch a video of the whole creation process!

Read More

Sushi shop in Tokyo has no name, passes savings on to you with 10-yen sushi!

In Yoyogi, Tokyo, there stands an unnamed sushi shop which sells impressively crafted sushi at rock-bottom prices. It’s a fairly new restaurant, known to locals as “The Sushi Shop With No Name” or “That Sushi Shop That Still Doesn’t Have A Name.”

To us, it became known as “The Place That Serves Yellowtail Sushi For Only 10 Yen (US$0.08) A Piece!” Granted, that’s not the catchiest of names, especially with the conversion to US dollars, but it’s definitely enticing.

And so, our resident sushi expert Mr. Sato set out to find this shop with no name and see if their quality also makes this a place worth visiting.

Read More

 

As information technology continues to evolve, telecommuting is becoming increasingly feasible and popular in Japan. Still, sometimes mobile workers find themselves in need of more business-oriented facilities than their home office has, and make use of shared workspaces like the ones we previously looked at.

But while all of those communal offices have amenities such as Wi-Fi, power outlets, and meeting areas, only this one has a resident cat that you can play with when you need a stress-relieving break from work.

Read More

Our Japanese reporter cleans his childhood room, finds all kinds of nostalgic treasures

Recently, our Japanese reporter Yoshio visited his parents’ house and decided to finally take a stab at tidying up his childhood room, which had been left untouched ever since he moved out. In the process, he was surprised to find many lost relics and treasures from his childhood, and became caught up in a wave of nostalgia for several hours. Needless to say, he didn’t get much cleaning done in the end…

If you’re the nostalgic type, perhaps you’d like to take a peek at the treasures that Yoshio dug up, some from over 20 years ago!

Read More

Things you won’t believe Chinese tourists are buying in Japan: drugstore edition

Often when you visit another country, one thing on everyone’s to-do list is a little shopping. It’s always interesting to see what products a foreign country offers that you can’t find back home. It’s also weird and fun to see the products you are familiar with presented in a different way.

One of the main reasons Chinese tourists visit Japan is to shop. It’s not uncommon to see a Chinese visitor enter a store and drop the equivalent of hundreds of U.S. dollars – usually in cash – on seemingly everyday products like clothes or electronics, but in some cases store shelves are picked completely clean.

But what’s on these tourists’ shopping lists? Here are 11 “godly” pharmacy products that Chinese visitors simply have to buy when they visit Japan.

Read More

Japanese marshmallow omelette: A real thing you can (and should) make right away 【Rocket Kitchen】

Recipes with marshmallows instead of sugar have soared in popularity online in Japan recently. We love marshmallows, so we’re hardly about to complain — so soft! so sweet! — and the rise in popularity even got the attention of some our Japanese writers, who decided to try out a recipe using marshmallows.

And what is the recipe? Cooked eggs!

Wait, cooked eggs and marshmallows? This really can’t turn out well…can it?! Read on to find out!

Read More

Who needs bread when you have fried chicken? Try all of your comfort foods revamped by KFC

Does anyone out there still adhere to the low-carb diet? You know, the one where you have to give up all sorts of bread-y goodness under the presumption that carbohydrates make you fat, and that upping the protein in your diet would somehow help you to lose weight? Well, if you’re in to that sort of torture, fast food chain KFC may have something for you, as stores worldwide have put out various twists on old favorites by replacing burger and hot dog buns with chicken, and now KFCs in the Philippines are upping the game with their new, extremely limited crustless chicken pizza.

And sorry, low-carbers, we lied. As breaded, deep-fried chicken isn’t exactly a proper alternative, you may want to turn away now to avoid temptation. Everyone else, you may proceed to the wonder that is the “Chizza“.

Read More

Taste the world this summer with Pretz versions of international food favorites

Kids in Japan only have about one more week left of school until summer vacation starts, while working adults are counting down the days until Obon vacation. It’s also the season where many Japanese snack makers start putting out limited summer edition flavors of your favorite snacks.

In fact, just today Glico launched a limited edition summer line of their popular Pretz series in Japan, so for those with no time or no money to travel abroad this summer vacation, you still have a chance to experience some exotic and not-so-exotic food flavors from across the ocean in the comfort of your very own home.

Read More

Watermelon mousse cake sounds too good to be true, but it’s real and in our office 【Taste-test】

When we heard about a special dessert called the suika baumkuchen being offered through online retailer Rakuten, we were pretty psyched, since it combines two of the greatest things on the planet: watermelon and cake. As a matter of fact, we were so excited that at first we thought it was only going to be available for one hour on August 1.

But as we spent hours drooling over the watermelon cake’s webpage, which had us so captivated we barely had time to use the Internet to look at pictures of cats and swimsuit models, we noticed something: the suika baumkuchen is actually available right now! We put in our order right away, and now we’re here to bring you our report on this incredible culinary crossover.

Read More

Gachapon banana peel figures in cute poses? Yes, please!

We never would have thought that people would pay real money for toys based on food refuse, but we guess that’s why we’ll never be rich. Someone in Japan obviously thought that a figure based on a banana peel was a good idea, because they designed it, sourced a manufacturer and put those slippery little guys on the market for everyone to buy.

And, wouldn’t you know it? They’re stupidly cute. Yeah, we just called banana peels cute. What’cha gonna do about it?!

Read More

Soak yourself in 100% pure hot spring water at home for less than 100 yen!

In the land of earthquakes, typhoons, blistering summers and mountains of snow in the winter, Japan’s plentiful and luxurious hot springs are Mother Nature’s way of letting us know that she doesn’t totally hate us.

But the number of true hot springs – where water naturally comes from the ground rather than being pumped in and then heated – is lower than you might imagine. Many places such as the new “hot spring” being built in Shinjuku have their water shipped in from a real hot spring source.

And now, if you live in the Kanto area, you can ship in your own hot spring water too! Why pay entry into some huge complex when you can soak in your own home bathtub away from the leering eyes of RocketNews24 journalists or tattoo-prudes. Oh, and did we mention it’s ridiculously cheap?

Read More

I scream, you scream, we all scream at “Soft Susheam”

If you’re thinking that one “would have to be out of their ever-lovin’ mind to mix sushi and soft serve ice cream,” then you’re not alone; that’s exactly what our reporter Nakano thought when he spotted an item called “Soft Susheam” on the menu of an Iwasaka sushi train restaurant in Okayama City. And yet, like a moth to a flame, he found himself unable to resist its lure.

Could something which sounded like a cross between soft-serve ice cream and sushi – two foods which, when served alone, have always been true crowd-pleasers – really work? Nakano simply had to find out.

Read More

The Boy and the Beast film debuts at #1, earns 667 million yen in 1st weekend

Mamoru Hosoda‘s The Boy and The Beast film debut at #1 during the July 11-12 weekend, topping the Japanese debut of Terminator Genisys. The Boy and The Beast opened on 457 screens, and earned 667,035,100 yen (about US$5.4 million) in its first two days. The film sold 494,170 tickets over the weekend.

Read More

Escape games, where people work in teams to solve puzzles to free themselves from confined spaces, have become hugely popular in Japan and around the world. When combined with a role-play theme, these events become even more exciting, as participants get to dress up and live out their fantasies in cleverly constructed worlds filled with props, sound and oodles of atmosphere.

As luck would have it, the escape concept is an idea that fits in perfectly with the narrative of the hugely popular Attack on Titan franchise, where members of the human race live in the confines of a walled city and spend a large chunk of time running away from flesh-eating giants. If you ever wanted to experience the thrill of being chased by a hungry Titan while also dealing with the stress of solving a puzzle within a time limit to save your life, it’s time to dress like a member of the Survey Corps and head out to Tokyo or Osaka this summer.

Read More

 

Taking the train is by far the most common way to get around urban and suburban Japan. By its very nature, though, using public transportation means being out in public, which in Japan means following social norms about proper manners and not bothering your fellow passengers.

The average Tokyo commuter spends an hour each way on the train, though. It can be hard to follow all of the implicit rules of train etiquette during such a lengthy ride, and here are 10 minor breaches of etiquette that some Japanese men are willing to turn a blind eye to.

Read More

As the last feature-length anime from Hayao Miyazaki, we’re sure The Wind Rises is going to be watched over and over by anime enthusiasts hoping to squeeze one last drop of mana from the celebrated director’s final film. But even if those repeated viewings won’t wear out your The Wind Rises Blu-ray like a fifth-generation Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind VHS fansub, you can only watch it so many times before diminishing returns start to set in.

But soon enough, there’ll be another piece of Miyazaki’s legacy for fans to pore over, as the manga version of The Wind Rises, drawn by the legend himself, is finally being published in a collected volume.

Read More

We scarf down all-you-can-eat fried chicken at a Tokyo pub

Let it never again be said that America is the only country that has an unhealthy relationship with fried foods.

While you may not find such cynically, blatantly unhealthy fare as fried butter and fried Oreos  here in Japan, you will find that many square meals consumed in Japan are going to come with some kind of fried food. A lot of times the default is karaage, a dish that is basically the Japanese analogue to American fried chicken, and an item that Japanophiles the world over desperately, vainly argue is somehow healthier than American fried chicken by virtue of its, uh… Japanese-ness or something?

The truth is, karaage is every bit as unhealthy as fried chicken from anywhere else and the Japanese are just as prone to gorging on it to the point of discomfort. Don’t believe us? Exhibit A: This all-you-can-eat fried chicken restaurant we went to for, uh… “research purposes.”

Read More

Fermented sushi? Two restaurants where you can get a same-day seat to try this gourmet treat

This year fermented sushi is in vogue among Tokyo’s gourmet crowd, with people raving about how the maturation of the fish brings out the elusive umami of the meat. As the name suggests, the creation of these dishes involves fermenting the ingredients to enhance the flavours and then using them to make regular sushi. This might sound strange since sushi is usually about having the freshest raw fish, but it’s actually an ancient form of sushi preparation from which the sushi we know today developed, and it’s apparently quite delicious.

However, as it requires great skill to properly ferment fish, there are currently few restaurants in the Tokyo area that specialise in this kind of food, and they’re already booked up by gourmet types leaving you to wait months before you can get a place. However, we’ve found two particular restaurants where you should be able to get a same-day reservation.

Read More

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has died

It’s a very sad day for gaming.

This morning, Nintendo released a statement that the company’s much-beloved president and CEO, Satoru Iwata, died in hospital on July 11 due to medical complications arising from a bile duct tumor that had been discovered some time before. Iwata was the first person to assume the role of president at the company who was not immediately related to members of the Yamauchi founding family.

Read More

A lemon has infinite vitamin C: unofficial joint study of Soft Drink Association, Twitter users

For some reason Japanese people love them some excessive amounts of vitamin C. Go to any convenience store or supermarket and your sure to find competing brands of drinks all loaded with the recommended daily intake of the stuff several times over.

But really, how many of us know off-hand what the daily recommended intake is? That’s why back in 2009 the Japan Soft Drink Association (JSDA) came up with a new labeling system that measures the amount of vitamin C added in units of lemons. I’m not sure how that actually makes it any clearer, but at least its something.

However, in the process it seems they have inadvertently created a formula that shows how a single lemon contains an infinite amount vitamin C.

Read More

  2. 1
  3. ...
  4. 1196
  5. 1197
  6. 1198
  7. 1199
  8. 1200
  9. 1201
  10. 1202
  11. ...
  12. 1654