Tokyo Diaries: 5th Time's the Charm

A gorgeous hidden gem hotel, my new favorite vintage spot, and housewares galore.

I’m somehow on the Japan Tourism Board’s mailing list and unlike everything else that lands in my Promotions inbox, I’ll actually open and read most of their emails. The most recent one caught my eye — apparently 2024 was a record year for tourists, with nearly 3 million being American. Uh yeah, guilty! I am most certainly one of them and I’ll also be counted among the 2025 group too. Given that the yen is at its lowest in decades, it’s easy to see why people are heading to the country in droves. I will caveat that having such growth is a double-edged sword. For every respectful sightseer, there’s a screaming child trying to climb a shrine with the help of his father for a photo — no really, I witnessed this at Kiyomizu-dera in horror. Thankfully, going in the off-season (well besides minus the ski areas) is still relatively less hectic, especially given that I obsessively plan every minute to optimize our time there.

I Really Want to Gatekeep Furano, Japan

Despite my attempts to plan out our days, it’ll never be possible to see everything. January marked my fifth trip to Tokyo, my second to Furano, and strangely enough, first time in Osaka and Kyoto. As for the last two, I will definitely need to make a return trip because I barely made a dent in my very extensive list. I know everyone has their maps, spots, etc. and the reasons why it’s the best. Is mine arguably better? Not necessarily but it’s curated very much in the spirit of this newsletter. I’m going to skip all of the shrines, museums, and Tsukiji — you can find all that on Google. Let’s get into the other stuff, namely my favorite food spots, vintage and resale shopping galore, and beauty.

A Few Logistical Notes

My view during landing was Mount Fuji at sunset.

• Fly into Haneda if you can, it’s such a timesaver compared to Narita. Rather than spending an hour to go from the latter to Tokyo Station, you can cab or train it to your hotel within 30-45 minutes. Also, if you happen to be flying from New York City, an afternoon flight means you land in time to catch Mount Fuji at sunset from the right side of the airplane (at least in January).

• Use a luggage service like Yamato if you have big suitcases to send them ahead. We did that with our snowboarding gear as well as the extra (mostly) empty suitcase that headed straight to Osaka. It’s much easier to hop on a train with only a carry on.

• Like all foreign travel, if you have T-Mobile you’re good to go for international phone service. Otherwise I use an eSim service like Holafly since it’s much cheaper than the $12/day roaming charge (obscene!).

Five Bites I Would Eat Again:

For the most part, most of the meals I’ve had in Tokyo have been amazing but it’s also very possible to have some bad experiences as well. I’m cheating a tiny bit because I’m combining my favorites from the last three years into this one post. My one rule is that we do not repeat restaurants in attempt to plough through the 300+ spots I have pinned on my map. Exceptions include coffee shops, stand-up sushi, and combini meals but true sit down spots are a one and done for the sake of variety. That being said, I would 100% return to these five. I could go on about all my spots but I’ll save that for future newsletters.

• TikTok famous spots can be hit or miss but I’ve found that three were worth the wait. If you time it right, it’s maybe 30 minutes tops. Beyond that I would not bother. The ones that I would return to in a heartbeat: Mukai and Katsudon-ya Zuicho in Shibuya, Udon Shin in Shinjuku.

  

  Mukai kaisendon.

• Most people will head to one of the many Tsujihan locations, which can get a little crazy with wait times. We opted to head to Mukai. They also serve kaisendon, which is a selection of raw seafood over rice. Besides selecting from their fish combinations, you can also customize the type of rice and vinegar. My favorite will always been the fatty tuna, uni, and ikura. Eat about 75% of it, then pour their clam based dashi for ochazuke. I don’t know what the wait is like now that it blew up on TikTok but we managed to be seated immediately when we went last year. No reservations are available.

• Katsudon-ya Zuicho serves only one dish (sense a theme here?). You order deep fried pork cutlet over a perfectly scrambled egg and you can choose how much rice you want. I always get the least possible so that I’m not too full to eat elsewhere. It’s somehow juicy and tender without being overly greasy and heavy. Come here for lunch while you’re shopping nearby but get there early — there’s almost always a wait but it tends to move quickly if you time in right.

  

  Udon Shin’s infamous carbonara 100000/10

• Caveat: I’m not the biggest carbonara fan. I find it too rich for me most of the time but the one at Udon Shin was absolutely perfect. The noodle spot is tiny and extremely popular. We got there at 10am to grab a ticket to come back for our table at 11:30am. In retrospect we should have just came back at 11am because you wind up getting on a line for those with tickets. I definitely noticed people who grabbed tickets after me already seated and I had to wait another 40 minutes. Would I do it again? Absolutely, it was so good. The noodles were bouncy and apparently tempura bacon can indeed change lives.

  

  

• I met up with Saori, our 10 Magazine Japan editor-in-chief and let her choose the place. We wound up at Sahsya Kanetanaka in Omotesando which was such a chic, quiet spot. Seats at the bar require a reservation and apparently it does get crowded but at 11:30 on Wednesday, it was perfect. For lunch you select two items from the menu along with dessert. I opted for sukiyaki and the sea bream ochazuke followed by matcha and a milk pudding. For $35-ish it’s the perfect midday stop.

• Kyubey is a Ginza institution as it happened to be where Obama would meet Shinzo Abe for power meals. The Michelin starred sushi spot has a super affordable lunch set but we spontaneously went after stopping off at Dover Street Market, which is nearby. You need reservations to sit at the sushi bar and experience the omakase bite by bite but we wound up being seated upstairs. It felt like a private dinner with the downside being that you’re not eating each nigiri as fresh as possible, so sometimes they fell apart. Even so, everything was absolutely delicious with my favorites being the baby eel they served as an appetizer, uni (duh!), and the tamago at the end.

My Beauty Stops

I wrote about my haircut spot earlier but to repeat, I LOVE QUQU. My colorist told me about the salon, they’re best known for their creative hair dying but the cuts are super precise and only $40. To book, you just DM the stylist of your choice. I chose Karen because I loved her style and she totally gets what I want.

As for nails, I prefer dramatic extensions. For the silver dripped set, I went to Atelier Sucre in Shinjuku. The salon is pretty famous on social media for their 3-D art — so much so that they have a second location in Shibuya. I went there for my latest set. Both cost around $130 to $140-ish. The artists don’t necessarily speak English but I used Google translate and brought some inspo photos.

Shopping, Galore

You’re probably wondering about the shopping spots. Obviously, secondhand designer bags retailers are HUGE there. That being said, prices have really shot up over the last two years. I’m extremely on the fence about shopping for that in Tokyo unless you are hunting down a rare piece. I find that secondary cities like Osaka, Kyoto, or Sapporo offers better prices for styles that tend to be more plentiful like classic Chanel flaps, Louis Vuitton, etc. The only exception: Hermès. That’ll cost you regardless of where you go, although depending on the style the up charge isn’t as steep at it’d be in New York.

Below the paywall: my top five vintage spots for Comme des Garçons including where I bought an incredible Noir Kei Ninoya dress for less than $400, plus the Michelin-approved hotel we booked for $300 a night.