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Had I mentioned...?
That Tokyo is the best food city in the world? That's by an order of magnitude; Paris and others aren't close. At this point my best guess is that Osaka is number two.
I thank Yan Li for the pointer to the link, which is interesting on another topic as well. We visited a quite amazing toilet shop here, which was impressive most of all for its seriousness, not just for its product. It was I believe on the 26th floor (L-Building, Shinjuku), so there is no walk-in trade for them. They play stormy Beethoven and offer talking toilets, toilets that perform lab tests on your ****, and toilets that can be programmed to do things I hadn't even thought of before.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 20, 2008 at 02:50 PM in Food and Drink | Permalink
Comments
The top restaurants in Japan are not in either
Tokyo or Osaka, but in Kyoto. Of course, both
Tokyo and Osaka have many more very good ones
and lots more diversity, with the good ones
in Kyoto being almost entirely Japanese. But,
the very highest of the highest Japanese
cuisine comes from Kyoto.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 20, 2008 3:09:00 PM
Paris is famously disappointing. I believe it lags Brussels in Michelin rosettes.
Posted by: Chris at May 20, 2008 3:32:40 PM
I am curious can you get good Italian food in Japan?
Posted by: Floccina at May 20, 2008 3:36:18 PM
Floccina,
A few years ago I had wonderful Italian in Kyoto, even at what would have been average touristy joints in the US (a few notches above Olive Garden, but not Babbo by any stretch). Portion sizes were on the small side though.
Posted by: Daniel at May 20, 2008 4:27:12 PM
Iron Chef Kobe made some pretty tasty looking stuff.
Posted by: josh at May 20, 2008 4:40:33 PM
I have been most impressed by the food in Italy and in Trinidad. I was surprised that I enjoyed the casual dining restaurants, street vendors, and home cooking (from people I knew) more than the fancy fine dining restaurants. I was underwhelmed by the food in Paris and in England.
I've never been to Japan but it sounds amazing.
Posted by: Giovanni at May 20, 2008 4:41:01 PM
Is that "best" at the peaks or on average?
If you mean on average, I agree.
At the peaks, I don't have data; but several people whose opinions I trust have told me that Paris is still supreme.
Posted by: Michael F. Martin at May 20, 2008 4:51:17 PM
I'll stick with my $5 taqueria burritos. I doubt Tokyo has anything better.
Posted by: Andy at May 20, 2008 4:59:56 PM
Haven't been to Tokyo, but Singapore totally outclasses Osaka, Kyoto, etc. at least for non-Michelin star dining.
Posted by: Brad at May 20, 2008 7:10:23 PM
If you get the chance, go and visit the Tsukiji fish market (pronounced skee-gi). This is the largest fish market in the world and a good measure of all the fish in the world comes through there. Odds are you've eaten something from Tsukiji if you've eaten much seafood. You have to get up early, but it is worth it. There is a subway stop a few blocks from the market.
There is a sushi restaurant on site which always has a huge line of people waiting to eat.
I agree that Japan is not only the best city in the world for food, but I'd rate Japanese cuisine to be the best in the world. (Many people I spoke with in Japan however said the best sushi restaurants were in New York, opened by Japanese chefs)
http://everything-everywhere.com/2008/01/13/japan-mecca-for-sushi-lovers
Posted by: Gary at May 20, 2008 8:09:45 PM
Thanks for this posting. I just arrived Tokyo and was heading out for lunch when I saw it.
I can recommend breakfast at my mother in law's house here.
Posted by: Dennis at May 20, 2008 8:37:22 PM
I disagree.
(I have never eaten in Tokyo.)
New York City.
Does Tokyo have Ethiopian restaurants? Pervuvian? Basque? And on and on.
New York is THE melting pot of THE world.
When Tokyo has 25 great Tex-Mex restaurants, call me.
Posted by: dave barnes at May 20, 2008 9:09:07 PM
Japan: Friend of the Alimentary Canal
Posted by: Bill at May 20, 2008 9:33:02 PM
While on a blind date in Hiroshima, I had to use the toilet at the girl's apartment.
Upon completion I needed of course to flush, but there were two buttons on this aerodynamic looking contraption of a toilet. Both of them depicted some sort of moving water.
I picked the wrong one, and could not figure out how to shut off the bidet. It was spraying against the wall, and so I had to get help.
My date and our companions had fun with this of course.
Posted by: Ray G at May 20, 2008 9:34:12 PM
soooooooooooooooooooooooo envious :(
Posted by: Jacqueline at May 20, 2008 10:04:46 PM
dave barnes, a lot of people would say that London has long surpassed New York as the melting pot of the world (quite reasonably in my opinion, having lived in those two cities for most of the past decade). And the Mexican food (even Tex-Mex) in NY is hardly anything special. But your point is valid - Tokyo doesn't have quite the breadth of ethnic food that New York or perhaps even London has. But it is certainly much more diverse than most people expect. Just off the top of my head I can think of some great Burmese, German, Indian, Nepalese, Turkish and Portuguese restaurants. And Mexican food is less common, but as good in quality as anything I ever found in New York (and in several places, with just as good a tequila selection). This is all to say nothing of the tens of thousands of Tokyo restaurants I haven't tried yet - Swiss (recommended by a friend raised there), Brazilian, Moroccan, Swedish, Danish, Russian, etc. And, yes, there are many Peruvian restaurants in Tokyo. (Remember Alberto Fujimori? or Nobu Matsuhisa - there's a lot of cultural connections between Japan and Peru.)
I do miss my neighborhood Puerto Rican lunch counter and Cuban-Chinese restaurant in New York, and my fantastic local Russian restaurant in London - but there is more variety in Tokyo than you would expect - and, most importantly, the average quality is way better than NY or London.
Floccina, there is a lot of fantastic Italian restaurants in Tokyo. My Australia-raised co-worker from Napoli says the best pizza he's ever had outside of Napoli is in Aoyama (trendy shopping district in central Tokyo). Giorgio Armani chose to spend a recent birthday at Elio in Kojimachi (and opened a very good place at the top of his new seven-story Armani store and spa in Ginza). Tokyo also has branches of many of Italy's top restaurants such as Enoteca Pincchiori. At many, if not most Italian restaurants, the chef, sommelier and probably a waiter or two probably all speak Italian, and spent years apprenticing in Rome, Bologna, etc. Many of them also make a pretty mean homemade limoncello.
Posted by: bcw210 at May 20, 2008 11:10:47 PM
Can u get Indian food Indian food in Japan easily?
Posted by: Bharatbook at May 21, 2008 5:00:00 AM
Indian food here is excellent...
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at May 21, 2008 6:53:43 AM
Tokyo best food in the world? I've visited Tokyo some 10-20 times and lived in Japan for two years and I can resolutely state that Tokyo's food, and the whole of Japan's, is some of the worst cuisine in the world. That was, of course, until I visited the USA. But seriously, for delicious food I would recommend Beijing or one of London's Indian restaurants.
Posted by: Divad at May 21, 2008 9:09:05 AM
Are the toilets mandated low-flow? If so, no amount of bells and whistles will provide a pleasing experience. Except for public applications, where that becomes someone else's problem.
Posted by: Andrew at May 21, 2008 10:08:07 AM
I'm a cheap food kind of guy. So, my emphasis is on what happens to it after processing.
Posted by: Andrew at May 21, 2008 10:14:03 AM
I've found that many Japanese tend to cite Kyoto cuisine as the best, but I think that's a learnt response, in the same way everyone "knows" about the quality of French Cuisine. Revealed preferences speaks alot about the latter (how much French food is consumed outside France without conspicuous consumption elements compared to Italian, Indian, Chinese or even burgers?).
Kyoto cusine is refined cuisine, which presumably means having the taste and vitality distilled out. It's so very boring.
Posted by: Richard Green at May 21, 2008 11:29:40 AM
You would be surprised at the diversity of cuisine offered in Japan. However, nothing compares with the Tonkatsu Ramen served in Kyushu, specifically Fukuoka. Everytime my wife and I return to Japan to visit her family we make a side trip to Tenjin (Fukuoka) to grab some tonkatsu ramen. If you have a chance and will be visiting Hiroshima, okonomiaki is a must. If in Nagasaki, chanpon is a must. Okinawa, believe it or not, serves some really good tacos. But the one thing really missing in Japan is all the microbrews so prevalent here in the States.
Posted by: n0rd1x at May 21, 2008 2:56:10 PM
Richard Green,
Are you speaking from experience that Kyoto cuisine
is "boring" because the "taste and vitality" have been
"distilled out of it," or is the "presumably" in your
remark a sign that you are presuming without knowing
what the hell you are talking about? I have had good
Kyoto kaiseki, and boring it most definitely is not, and
it is extremely vital and tasty. In my own view, only the
top of Paris cuisine is its rival, and my own current favorite
restaurant in the world is Pierre Gagnaire in Paris, which is
notable for having a very strong Japanese influence in his
cuisine.
One of the reasons one does not see lots of really top
flight French cuisine outside France is that it is very
expensive, as is really top flight Japanese cuisine. There
are very few kaiseki restaurants in the US, with that supposed
melting pot, New York, having only one, Kai, which is the
most expensive restaurant in New York (I have not eaten there,
and have no intention of wasting my time and money doing so).
If you look at Zagat, you will find that in more US cities
than not, the top restaurant or restaurants for food are
French, or some variation on it. This is certainly true for
that overrated "melting pot," New York.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 21, 2008 3:50:48 PM
BTW to Tyler: did you get to the basement of Mitsukoshi in Tokyo yet?
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 21, 2008 3:51:48 PM
Perhaps Kyoto cuisine suffered by being consumed so closely to the boistrous tastes in Osaka, but it really was quite insipid, and seemed more concerned with elegance than flavour, but hey, I guess a city of merchants works on results, and a city of courtiers on appearances.
As for French food, considering "top flight" cuisine is a poor judgement of a country's cuisine. It's far more interesting to see what people eat at home or in a neighbourhood restaraunt, when they are eating for themselves, then when they are eating for appearances. I'm sure French people don't eat top flight cuisine all the time, at least one night a week they have to eat at home right?
Yet outside France you can dinf both top flight and every day options in Indian, in Japanese, Greek, Italian, Chinese, Thai etc etc. But the French options remain top flight, eaten to signal class to others, not for its inherent qualities. One could argue that this is due to a lack of migrants to seed a market, but this doesn't really explain the mind blowing ubiquity of Japanese places when large emigrations of Japanese were restricted to South America and the west coast.
Posted by: Richard Green at May 21, 2008 6:09:29 PM
But whose cuisine in Tokyo reigns supreme?
Anyway, these rankings mean little to me, and to anybody with a low income. Now what countries have the best food for low income people? Does anybody bother to rank that?
Posted by: Jacob Oost at May 22, 2008 1:01:22 AM
My two years in Osaka were very good food years. Kyoto kaiseki places are exceptional. Osaka has maybe the best ramen houses there are on the planet. Kobe's china town has exceptional chinese food with a twist.
I would caution against Japanese versions of certain other cuisines that feature boldness of flavor and spice. The worst food I can remember was at a Mexican place on Dotombori in Osaka. It was Mexican, but without chiles or any heat at all. I was not a fan of Japanese Italian, which featured very heavy oil and very light use of herbs and seasoning.
The exception that makes the rule, I suppose, is the Indian food, which seemed to be the thing Japanese folks would do when they wanted to eat hot. Very strong, very hot, and very good.
A co-worker suggested that the Japanese prefer 'squishy and bland'. I strongly disagree but would certainly use the term 'subtle'.
Posted by: JasonL at May 22, 2008 3:47:49 PM
Richard G.,
Guess it is a matter of where and what you ate in Kyoto.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 22, 2008 5:00:50 PM
I live in NYC, I've lived in Tokyo, I spent a semester in college in Rome, I've visited London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, most countries in Asia and central Asia (yes, I love to travel).
Most major cities in the world are good for food, but the best city for food in the world: Singapore.
Tyler, if Tokyo is your first major Asian city, I suspect you have merely stumbled upon the Asian Food Phenonmenon: Asians in general take food much more seriously than other people. European cultures value money or power or love more. Even Italy. And while the food in every major Asian city is awesome, every major Asian city prefers its own cuisine. Singapore really doesn't have a native ethnic group (ex-pat Chinese, maybe, but not like Hong Kong) and so they feel entitled to go all-out for the food of every ethnic group in town (and unlike Tokyo, they have lots).
worst food nation: Khazakstan. Not even Russian food, just alchohol and cigarettes and fake imported "luxury" food, like stale Swiss chocolates (they have oil money).
Posted by: Diana at May 25, 2008 8:48:05 PM
Tokyo the best food city in the world? I love food in Tokyo as much as the next guy (even if you are the next guy), but ...
Not even close.
Lima, Peru.
Ceviche alone would make Lima the best food city in the world.
Chicken in Lima is a revelation. You have no idea what food can be until you have had Peruvian chicken. I am not kidding you.
It's also got the world's best steak. Best cabrito. Best lamb. Best organ dishes.
Shellfish, squid and octopus. Fish.
The baked spuds in Ketchum, Idaho are better, but the papas fritas ...
Chilean and Argentine wines, well aged. Pisco sours.
Desserts that make Paris look like Peoria.
Japanese food that is as good (and adventurous) as anything in Tokyo. The sushi is simply astonishing -- it has to be, to compete with ceviche.
The Chinese immigration wave of the early 20th century created one of the world's great fusion cuisines: Chifa. There's Szechuan Chifa, Cantonese Chifa, Pekinese Chifa ....
Posted by: David Spencer at Jun 4, 2008 2:57:21 PM
And also the most expensive...
Posted by: Prashant at Jun 4, 2008 11:09:08 PM
