After a Tweet last year from Aziz Ansari, GQ decided to send comedian Ansari, Momofuku empire chef David Chang, and LCD Soundsystemer James Murphy to Tokyo. This is their story. Whole thing is worth a read.

The meal demanded a nap. Then it was off to Bar High Five, owned by Hidetsugu Ueno, who has become the foremost ambassador of the Japanese cocktail movement. Stepping into the closet-sized space on the fourth floor of a building in Ginza, the ritzy shopping district, was like arriving on an advanced planet whose sole sacred text was a 1960s American bar manual—like stepping at once back and forward in time. Ueno wore a magnificent pompadour and worked from strange bottles of the kind you see gathering dust under American bars—sloe gin and blended whiskeys and odd liqueurs. His technique was astonishing: When he poured, it was in a thin stream from high above the golden wood bar, somehow perfectly filling each glass to just its meniscus point.

TOKYO SLO MODE is nice on a Sunday morning, especially because I love slow motion.



Via Stellar

In a post about a Japanese food showcase at C.I.A., this nugget:

American water is apparently harder than Japanese water and has high mineral content, which chefs consider unusable. “It’s unacceptable, particularly for the chefs from Kyoto,” said one Japanese conference staff member.

I wonder if this level of attention to detail among Japanese chefs is why Japan is now tied with France for number of Michelin 3-star restaurants. Both countries have 26.


Via Grub Street Boston

Waxy.org says these are awful, but I disagree. Ruby Soho and Basket Case are great and the 7 minute extended Smells Like Teen Spirit is plain magic. This is what a punk covers album by The Postal Service would sound like if The Postal Service wasn't as good and (a less good) Ayumi Hamasaki was the singer instead of Jenny Lewis. It's called Pun-Colle and it makes me dream.