Ivan Orkin’s Guide To Tokyo
You’re a ramen guy, Ivan. Where are your top ramen spots in Tokyo?
There's just a ridiculous number of ramen spots. For some of the hottest spots, you have to get up at 7, 8 or 9am, get a ticket, wait all day, and just hope to get in. To keep up, I always recommend two great websites and Instagrams: @RamenAdventures and @RamenBeast.
I was just in Tokyo and enjoyed Ramen Hisui, run by a guy who worked for Ramen Break Beats, another hot ramen place in Akasaka Mitsuke. Uchoku in Kichijōji serves only tsukemen, which is the dipping noodle. The noodles were fantastic. People line up an hour before it opens. One of my favourites that everybody should go to is Ramen Nagi in Golden Gai, which does a tonkotsu ramen with a sort of fishy blend on top. It's open 24/7 – a great place to go if you've been drinking all night long. It's heavy and delicious, and really good.
Which hotels do you rate in Tokyo?
The Park Hyatt Tokyo of Lost in Translation fame closed for two years and just reopened. That's really nice. I took my son for lunch at their Japanese restaurant Kozue. It's on the 40th floor, really good, overlooking the city, and it was cheap too ($30, maybe £25). We got the tendon (a tempura on rice with sweet sauce on top and a bunch of side dishes), which was delicious and really fun. They also have a new one called New York Grill. You can get a steak, the cocktails are well regarded, and it overlooks the city too. In Roppongi, there's the Grand Hyatt, which is popular and mid-price. In terms of small hotels, my favourite is Mitsui Garden. They have branches all over the country. It's much more reasonable and they usually have a public bath. Everybody talks about the buffet breakfast. It’s very buzzy and fun. I wouldn't call it gourmet or delicious, but it's very traditional: miso soup, rice, pickled plums and fish – and you can eat as much as you want. The APA Hotels are even cheaper or you can go all the way up to the Aman Hotel. The Tokyo Prince Hotel and The New Otani Tokyo are also really nice and really expensive.
How does a typical night out in Tokyo go?
Japan is interesting, because while there are a lot of good cocktail bars, drinking and eating is more what people do. It's more like you sit for three hours eating, noshing, drinking, and then as your food disappears, you order another couple of plates, and eat and drink and nosh. Plus, the beverages tend to be a little less powerful.
What drinks do you recommend ordering?
Chu Hai is a blend of shochu, which is Japanese vodka, if you will, but lighter. They do it in all different flavours, like lemon and oolong tea. Also, whisky sodas (highballs) are popular and taste delicious.
Which area would you head to for drinks?
Ginza is a really fun place for cocktail bars, as is the Azabu-Juban area, Ebisu and Daikanyama. The izakayas are where you really want to drink. Golden Gai, especially if you're young, has little drinking stalls all over the place, and you can wander into any of them. Nothing's particularly good, but everything is particularly fun.
Which tourist attractions do you love?
I always like to go to the Meiji Jingu shrine in Omotesando. It's one of the more touristy, youthful places with all kinds of bling and fun shopping, but then you walk into this temple area, down this pebble-strewn pathway, and all of a sudden you're in the forest, and at the end there's this beautiful giant Red Gate. Walk through that and you're in a temple. Walk out, and you're right back in the hustle and bustle. Give yourself an hour, and maybe aim for six or seven in the morning when there's nobody around. It's very peaceful. You really feel like you're in Japan.
I also will give a shout out to Kabuki-za. It's a traditional theatre in Japan. I recommend splurging on seats in the first few rows, because for this type of theatre it's all about the facial expressions, embroidered kimonos, and translation screens so you can actually read what's going on. Go to the Ginza Kabuki-za.
Let’s talk about sushi spots…
Sushi has become extremely exclusive and expensive in Japan. There’s one sushi spot I have to go to each trip called Sushi Ko in Okachimachi. It's really cheap but fresh. I have a 17 year old, and I let him eat as much as he wants and it's rarely more than £20-£25 per person, but it’s good. They have big tables upstairs, so you can go with a whole bunch of friends, or you can go for lunch and sit at the counter. They open at 11:30 – I would get there at 11:10 because the queues start early.
Yamato and Sushi Dai in Toyosu market are really good. You have to line up for them, but they're fun. £30-£40 for a set menu. I would definitely check out the new Takanawa Gateway, which is a new complex they just built with its own train station. Once again, I would get reservations. The food's okay, but the view is fantastic. Also in that category of good department-store sushi are Azabudai Hills and Toranomon Hills. Sushi Takahashi in Ginza is delicious. Upmarket, there’s Sushi Saito, which is really famous and £400-£500 a person.
Tabélog is the Yelp of Japan, but better. I recommend using it. If you’re really hungry for a real sushi experience, take the Shinkansen to Kanazawa. Kanazawa is about two hours away, and it's famous for delicious fish, and it has a lot of sushi spots that are easier to get into. They have a famous market, and conveyor-belt sushi places that are actually really good, and you can eat incredibly fresh, delicious fish for £20-£30. I went to a place called Sushi JinJin when I was there. Probably £200-£300 for us to eat at and it was really good.
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The best day trips from Tokyo?
Kamakura is really, really fun. Being the old capital, it has all kinds of great places that really feel like old Japan. And there’s a giant Buddha that's gorgeous. It's very bohemian and, oddly, really hip as well. There are a lot of artists and artisans living there because it's a little looser and more relaxed. You could spend the day there, then make your way up the coast as well.
Near Kamakura, Enoshima is a nice seaside area. They call it the Shonan part. Take a swimsuit, rent a surfboard and go surfing. Enoshima itself is a very pretty little island. You can spend a couple of hours there. You can go take baths and it has a really nice view. They’re famous for their kakigori around there – a Japanese shaved ice dessert.
Ivan Orkin’s Golden Tokyo Travel Rules
- There are certain foods you really should eat when you're in Japan, because it's hard to eat them outside of Japan – things like eel, unagi and yakitori.
- Tsukiji fish market is now sort of a fake market. The market itself moved to Toyosu.
- While I like Shibuya and Shinjuku very much – they have a lot of special things about them – I would not eat in those neighbourhoods.
- Find out where the locals eat. There are some shops that you might think are against foreigners, but in my experience, they are more worried about disappointing a guest or miscommunicating and having a guest be angry or upset. That’s why some places might not want to serve a foreigner.
- If you can learn a couple of words of salutation and greeting, it'll make your visit much better.
- If you have a concierge, use them. If you book out your trip six months in advance, get on the phone with the concierge the same day to make your reservations. A lot of restaurants want a phone number, they want an address, they want to know how to contact you, because they get nervous that you're not going to show up.
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