Japan Recommendations for Friends and Family

Note: These are some personal places we have found in our many trips to Japan across 10 years, mostly to Tokyo.
That said there’s proabbly 1000x more places to explore. It would take multiple lifetimes to explore Tokyo itself.

Japanese Food

[70% of the time we jsut walked in to a place and ate, but here are some places I remember]

  • Kagari Ginza (Ramen)

  • Tofu Cuisine Sorano Shibuya

  • Ushigorobanbina Ebisu Honten (Yakiniku)

  • Yakinuku Champion

  • Afuri Ramen (several locations)

  • Sakuragaoka Tsubagidou

  • Okonomiyaki Kiji (and Sakuratei

  • For some high end restaurants you might need a Japanese friend or concierge to call and book

  • Odayasu

  • Skiyaki Ginza

  • Suchitaichi

  • Incredible steak places all over the city, hard to go wrong

Non Japanese Food

  • Apollo (Greek)

  • Garden House Crafts (Casual)

  • French bakeries in Tokyo are insane (Great one in Hiroo forget the name)

  • Never had good Mexican in Tokyo although the Japanese do almost everyone cuisine better than original (luck?)

Coffeeshops and Bakeries☕

  • Path bakery Yoyogi

  • Nata de Cristiano (Portuguese Pastel de Nata)

  • Deus Ex Machina Coffee shop

  • Many blue bottle coffees across Toyko

  • Nem Coffee

  • Aoyama Flower Market

  • Camelback

  • Single O

Bars 🍷🥂

  • La Cabane (Small wine bar run by Eric)

  • Shinjuku Pit Inn

  • Open book

Cool Places to visit

  • Daikanyama T-Site

  • Shimokitazawa: Hipster neighborhood

  • Harajuku: Crazy neighborhood (quite crowded esp on weekends but part of appeal)

  • Shinjuku Ganka Art gallery

  • 21_21 Design Site

  • National Museum of Modern Art

  • Tokyo Sky tree

  • Top of roppongi (usually very nice short term exhibits)

  • Robot restaurant: kitschy, hillarious, touristy but a fun visit!

Science and Tech

  • National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation

  • Minato Science Museum

  • Sony Showroom/Store Ginza

  • Akihabara: Tech neighborhood: Many big tech stores to get lost in and see quirky tech.
    (Bic, Yodobashi, etc)

Streetfoody spots

  • All Department stores have a (usually underground) amazing “food court” (not to be confused with a US mall food court)

  • Many neighborhoods would have tiny restaurants that are good to pop in to or takeaway, navigate using your nose, be adventurous.

Hotels

  • Mandarin Oriental: Like four seasons a bit of businessy area but nicer than Four Seasons as a hotel itself.

  • Four Seasons Maronouchi: a bit of a businessy area but close to Tokyo station, imperial palace and Ginza.

  • Westin and Grand Hyatt have great locations.

  • Park Hyatt: Rooftop Pool is great but location isn’t very conductive to walking out to something.

  • Andaz Tokyo Toranomon Hills:


Great Parks

  • Sinjuku Guyoen Park

  • Ueno Park: Beautiful park but also museums inside are great.

  • Imperial Palace Gardens

Logistics/Admin Recs for friends

Transport

  • Haneda airport is much closer to the city : Fly in and out of it if you have a choice.

  • Narita is quite far from the city and could be a super long drive, Narita express could be a better option. (Also taxi is like 200USD :)

  • If you are taking trains around Japan you might want to buy the Japan Rail Pass before you leave.

  • For transport inside the city, taxis are great (uber used to work well but only on limos, seems it works on Taxis now) Taxi drivers are usually super nice and professional.

  • Metro/JR line/Subway: Different lines to get around the city, sometimes you have to change ‘station’ to go to your destination. Buy a card that works across lines like a SUICA or PASMO.

Outside Tokyo

Section TBD

Kyoto
Osaka
Kobe
Nagano
Hakone