Japan

Today is a dark, weird day in a dark, weird year in a dark, weird timeline. But we at The Takeout actually have some…

It is my dream to someday go to Japan. I tell myself I would like to see Tokyo and Kyoto and hike the Kumano Kodō…

There are tea countries and there are coffee countries. Japan is most emphatically a tea country. In the 1970s,…

When I went to Tokyo and Kyoto in February, I never could have imagined how many times I’d eat at convenience…

About a week into the COVID-19-related stay-at-home orders, I noticed a surge in Instagram posts related to…

When it comes to fusing the cuisines of different cultures (I’m trying hard to avoid the loaded term “fusion”), the…

It’s at around bowl number 40 that I start to slow down, but our server, a somber teen who’s probably all of 15…

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed in the packaged curry aisle of an Asian grocery store. So many different kinds of…

The plump, mottled fugu sits on a well-worn wicker platter and stares up at us with bright and shiny yellow eyes.…

Have $19,500 in your couch cushions that you’d like to put toward a nice bottle of Scotch? If not, don’t worry—you…

It’s always a little sad to say goodbye to a neighbor. In Tokyo’s Akihabara neighborhood, when a McDonald’s posted a…

I hope I’m not blowing your mind by telling you rice is a big deal in Japan. The crop’s been cultivated on the…

It’s the dead of winter, and most of the fun holidays are behind us—but there’s still months of cold and slush to…

It’s well established that Kit Kat saves all its best material for the Japanese market. Referring to “Japanese Kit…

Americans have learned a lot about food in recent years. We’ve learned the difference between robusta and Arabica…

Mentaiko spaghetti is my favorite of the Japanese-Western fusion cuisine known as Yoshoku. It takes marinated salted …

A few years back I started making homemade pork and cabbage gyoza, a laborious but worthwhile endeavor. Making and…

Over the weekend I found myself at a Japanese grocery store food court, standing in line at a noodle stall that…

I have watched every single clip from a Japanese prank TV show. Every single last one. This is what your humble Takeo…

As a child of Seattle, I’m fond of my hometown’s relationship with chicken teriyaki, which is to the Emerald City…