
Why Tokyo Is the World’s Best Food City - thebent
http://luckypeach.com/why-tokyo-is-the-worlds-best-food-city-david-chang
======
olivierlacan
If you don't read the byline (Momofuku's David Chang), you'd be excused for
thinking it's written by a doofus who's not really worried about actually
constructing an argument as opposed to lining up opinions.

I like Chang, but I can't take his piece seriously with a sentence like this:

> I genuinely don’t give a fuck about any other place on the planet. I just
> want to go to Tokyo to eat. Look at the other food cities in the world, such
> as Paris. Can’t live there, because I don’t want to eat only French food.
> It’s great for a week and then you know what I want? Anything but French
> food.

I believe he occasionally frequents hip modern French restaurants in Paris,
many of which are essentially focused on taking a modern twist on classical
"haute cuisine" and making it less pretentious and even more adventurous. So
it's a little rich to see him go on about Tokyo when after going to his
favorite Ramen joints there a few years ago, I still couldn't find one that
could touch my experiences at Kotteri Ramen Naritake in Paris — a decidedly
Japanese export run the way a Ramen joint is supposed to run and yet the best
Ramen I've ever had anywhere in the world.

Tokyo is an amazing place to eat. No argument about that. But putting down
other culinary destinations just because you easily get bored of the main food
style there is a little lazy. I've had amazing food in Tokyo without trying to
play it safe. Yet, I could flip his "argument" about French food in Paris and
say that when you get bored of Japanese food (or Japanese reinventions of
other foods), then maybe Tokyo would get old for you.

What's far more likely is that he (Chang) has an intense emotional attachment
to Tokyo's food scene and that it gives him perpetual pleasure. And that's
great, for him. For anyone curious of his claims, just watch Mind of a Chef's
Japan episode with David Chang, it's a marvel:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cJm1zny0Bw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cJm1zny0Bw)

PS: Yes, I'm French, from Paris, and just as fucking biased as he is.

~~~
paulsutter
> when you get bored of Japanese food (or Japanese reinventions of other
> foods), then maybe Tokyo would get old for you.

No, sorry, Tokyo really has amazing food of all kinds and not mere
"reinventions". Italians here admit the Italian food is better on average than
in Italy, the American food is better here than back home, etc.

I won't get into French food in Tokyo, which is superb, I will leave that
comparison to you.

If you haven't been in Tokyo, you really have no idea what you're talking
about. There are more Michelin starred restaurants here than Paris, London,
and New York combined. And more importantly: only half the Michelin starred
restaurants in those cities are any good. On the other hand, only half the
good restaurants in Tokyo accept a Michelin listing because the other half
doesn't want to deal with the tourists it brings. So the real ratio is even
more lopsided.

Ps, Momofuku is overrated and David Chang's personality is tedious, but that
doesn't make him wrong about Tokyo.

------
billforsternz
I enjoy this person's enthusiasm, but I am skeptical of his method and
conclusions. If you have to fly seafood around the world it's not the best
seafood any more. Statements like "There's no Southeast Asian food that I can
find ... but if it exists it's probably really good" raise their doubts. Using
the F word for emphasis in every sentence raises doubts.

Some things I can definitely agree with. Being in Italy drives me crazy too. I
think you could make a fortune opening a decent Chinese (or really decent any
non-Italian cuisine) restaurant in Rome. Because everything built around pasta
in every single restaurant really gets old.

~~~
boyd
While the style raised doubts for me too, I then saw the byline and realized,
well, he can get away with it. For context, the author is David Chang
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chang)),
who has – amongst other accolades – a 2-star Michelin restaurant.

Aside: I also find it _very_ awesome that David Chang made a GenBank reference
in this article. :)

~~~
gxs
Disagree that he can get away with it. Michelin star or not, this guy wouldn't
have a modicum of main stream recognition if it weren't for Anthony Bourdain
giving him his 15 minutes of fame.

If you watch the Mind of a Chef series where he is featured in the first
season, you get the sense that he has a chip on his shoulder regarding asian
cuisine. That's fine and maybe well deserved, but I wouldn't get this kind of
advice from someone so blatantly biased.

Especially someone who brags about the Japanese sending their "very best cooks
to train in Europe" who then subsequently tries to belittle some of the
world's top food destinations that happen to be in Europe.

------
newscracker
I just saw personal opinions, misogynist remarks (reference to a "dumb blonde
who's just beautiful", because "dumb blondes" are not human, you see),
condescending remarks, very limited world view, more personal opinions. Yes,
Tokyo is the world's best food city…for the author.

I don't feel like looking up who the author is or what the author's prior
reputation and accomplishments are (beyond what's mentioned in plain text in
the comments here). Those cannot excuse the writing. The words in the article
tell a lot.

~~~
romanovcode
Exactly, really don't see how this crap article even got to front page and got
so much traction.

------
finishingmove
"Why Tokyo Is the World’s Best Food City"? Because the author uses the word
"fucking" at least once per paragraph. That is why. So off I go to Tokyo,
visibly impressed.

------
Gatsky
This is obviously very cras and opinionated, but there are 2 key points buried
in there - the Japanese are distinguished by their willingness to appropriate
good things from around the world. This is a huge difference, I find, compared
to European countries, particularly France. They also, as he says, care a lot
about what they do, and are devoted to food. This has it's downsides, eg try
buying a cheap ugly apple in Tokyo, you will fail, the producer threw it away
long before it could have ever reached the store.

I think Japan also gets a bit of a leg up over other places because if you
have lived elsewhere all your life then you will find food in Japan incredibly
novel and fascinating in provenance, packaging, preparation and presentation.
When I first arrived I found even just the convenience stores mind boggling in
the variety of stuff I had never seen before. The actual food halls are a
whole other level from there. It is difficult to have the same experience if
you have lived in the West and go to London/Rome/Paris for the first time.

~~~
vram22
"The actual food halls"

What are food halls in Japan? Something like food courts in Malaysia? -
multiple different food joints (you eat standing there or take away to eat
sitting at central tables)?

~~~
Gatsky
[http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/attractions/dining/depachika/](http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/attractions/dining/depachika/)

~~~
vram22
Interesting. Seems sort of like the malls in KL which also have food courts
attached.

------
skynetv2
I am right and you're wrong if you disagree.

I don't like to eat paella, so it doesn't matter.

Mexican food doesn't matter

Hard to make a convincing argument that way.

~~~
rtpg
It's weird because it's also wrong, which makes me think this person hasn't
really thought hard about this:

\- There's a couple decent paella places, and some fine Spanish bars that
serve some food.

\- "best patisseries in the world" is a stretch. There's good stuff, but most
major cities in France have one or two places that would beat all of Tokyo's
places.

\- The egg-salad sandwiches at most convenience stores are not super tasty. I
mean it will beat any convenience store food outside of Japan, but I would
still only eat convenience store food for time/money reasons. Best food of its
kind, but a restaurant will usually be better.

\- there's a lot of South-asian restaurants? Notably thai, though I can't
vouch for the quality, not knowing what the "real deal" is.

My experience mostly aligns with the author, though. Tokyo has such variety
and such a high baseline for food compared to what I've experienced elsewhere
that I'm afraid to leave because I've gotten so used to not worrying about bad
food.

There's a lot of non-authentic stuff (Chinese places, notably, are all
"Japanified"), but usually two or three places that are the real deal for a
kind of food.

Except for breakfast food, have not been able to figure out where to get a
"Waffle House experience" before 11 AM

~~~
gommm
In term of patisseries, it's a matter of taste. Patisseries in Japan tend to
be less sweet than in France so if, like me, you like them less sweet, then
it's difficult to find something as good in France.

I agree with the rest of what you say.

------
tjpnz
It is if you don't have any dietary restrictions. I'm a Vegetarian and have
been living in Tokyo for just over a year now. Coming from New Zealand which
is vegetarian friendly (you're guaranteed to find vege options on any menu) I
have found this aspect of Japanese living frustrating. I'm not suggesting they
need to change but it is something to be aware of. Vegetarianism is a foreign
concept to many Japanese and you will encounter situations where rogue meat
will end up in your food much less fish. It's not impossible though (provided
you can ignore that everything is cooked in meat fat) but I would say that if
there are any vegans here they'd be SOL.

------
ekianjo
Best Food city ? I'm writing from Tokyo right now (I go there several times a
month) and while you certainly have a very good palette of choice, within
Japan it's one of the most expensive places to eat, and the big problem that I
have is that it's constantly crowded, especially where the food is a bit
better than average. And the lack of space in general does not match with a
super enjoyable experience. I'd prefer eating in Kansai any day, where you can
actually relax and enjoy the food (cheaper and of very good quality too)
instead of caring about the noise and the crowd.

~~~
martin_henk
Yep, i think so too. Kansai is less posh though on the average. Having the
upscale experience might be important for some folks...

~~~
ekianjo
Osaka, certainly, but Kobe is definitely more on the same posh level as Tokyo,
especially for more expensive restaurants.

------
jagtesh
I read this article with a pinch of salt. The author is biased towards
Japanese, French and Italian cuisines. He clearly notes the lack of South
Asian and Spanish cuisine restaurants (what about Mexican? Filipino?) in
Tokyo. How can a city have the best food in the world, if it's not even a fair
representation of the world? That's like saying Japanese, Italian and French
cuisines are the best in the world.

~~~
nmerouze
Mexican food anywhere in Japan is pitiful and only slightly less worse in
Tokyo. Living in Osaka, I clearly see a lack of diversity. I'm French, lived
in Paris and travels a lot but I agree with the article, I have been to some
French and Italian restaurants (run only by Japanese) that offer the best
value worldwide.

~~~
KSS42
How is the Mexican food in Paris?

~~~
joeblow9999
In general, the whole of Europe has no appreciation for Mexican food. I'm sure
you can find some rare examples of "good" Mexican restaurants at one or two
places in Europe but those are definitely the exceptions.

Mexican food in Europe... <shudder>

------
lifeformed
The best food city has to be the one with the most diversity of foods. If you
want the best food of a certain cuisine, of course it would be hard to beat
the cuisine's homeland. But some cities are better than others in providing
high-quality (but maybe not the absolute best) examples of international
cuisines.

Another factor is that, to me, the "best food city" is one that has excellent
cheap food. This is also a factor proportional to the city's diversity. Some
cities may have amazing high-end restaurants, but I'm not going to eat at a
nice sit-down restaurant all the time (maybe even rarely). A city may have
many Michelin stars, but when's the last time you considered a Michelin place
for lunch? How many times would you go to one, maybe once a year, or less?

Because of this, I would rate many American coastal cities as some of the best
places for food because of the diversity.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Tokyo is pretty cheap for normal people. At least, it feels cheaper than an
American coastal city depending on swings in the exchange rate. This includes
lower end foreign resteraunts.

~~~
rybosome
That was my impression when I visited last year. Granted, USD was doing quite
well against JPY at the time, but I was shocked at how much more affordable
restaurants were in Tokyo than Seattle. My first meal there was an $8 bowl of
ramen, and it was easily the best I've ever had.

------
martin_henk
I bet that going to Kansai region (Osaka/Kyoto/Kobe/Nara) could beat Tokyo as
far as food goes.

~~~
ekianjo
For Japanese cuisine, certainly. I agree with you. For western/fusion/foreign
cuisine, I believe it's true that Tokyo has probably more choice and a higher
level in general.

------
cosenal
I usually come to HN to read articles that are the opposite of this one. I
don't care who wrote this, I don't care who David Chang is, I come to HN to
find facts, data, and rationality. I like the word fucking to emphasize
something but I fucking hate reductio ad fuckingum arguments.

------
sandGorgon
IMHO - the one place where you get the best food in a 24 hour area from around
the world, including affordable Michelin star food is Singapore.

Between the kopitiams (24 hr coffee shops), 4$ michelin star food [1] and the
Timbre gastropark... you really can eat amazing food all in a day.

[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/aug/04/micheli...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/aug/04/michelin-
star-for-singapore-noodle-stall-where-lunch-is-half-the-price-of-a-big-mac)

------
kashyapc
[Well-known chef or not, Chang could cut out that excessive cussing, and
_utterly_ tasteless comments about women.]

I don't get the impression the author includes vegetarian options. Or are we
to be laughed off the room, because "it's a costal city"? But hey, he uses the
all-encompassing "Best Food City".

<data-sample-one> Last year, when in Tokyo (was put up near Shinagawa
station), after a long day of work, I simply wanted a good veggie / vegan
meal. Took me 2 hours of ambling around (okay, some of it aimless; didn't take
my phone with me) to find a place with one veggie option. I asked another
vegetation colleague who visits Tokyo far more frequently, and he did kind of
confirm: "yeah, it's slightly harder to find veggie / vegan options".

A month before that, was on the other side of Pacific (Seattle), and I found
great many options, including delicious Japanese veggie food. </data-sample-
one>

------
beyondcompute
I don't believe it's the 'best food city' even for vegetarians, let alone
vegans :)

------
ramgorur
I am not sure about the gourmet scenes in tokyo (I am a poor grad student),
but in terms of groceries, they are the best. You can get extremely good
quality beef from shops like daiei.

the most unusual stuff I have seen was in 7/11, I don't know how they cook
such good quality oden, and even they keep very good quality sandwiches,
weird, because to eat something quick and cheap people generally don't mind
the quality so much, and the bathrooms are squeaky clean (the public hygiene
sense in the us is still primitive if you compare with japan's). 7/11s also
keep good onigiris, kara-ages.

tokyo street foods are also amazing, but a dinner at a mediocre restaurant
will rip off your pocket.

------
afs35mm
FYI, for all the jaded readers/commenters (everyone?) I think this is just a
an op-ed piece in the vein of "Why X Is Better Than Y" That Lucky Peach has
been doing.

[http://luckypeach.com/why-new-york-is-better-than-san-
franci...](http://luckypeach.com/why-new-york-is-better-than-san-francisco/)

[http://luckypeach.com/why-san-francisco-is-better-than-
new-y...](http://luckypeach.com/why-san-francisco-is-better-than-new-york/)

------
andrew_wc_brown
I own quite a few copies of the Lucky Peach but I find myself not able to make
the majority of recipes because their recipes focus on strong overpowering
ingredients.

To me this is sad way of cooking, where a recipe is dominated by onions, or
garlic or beats. Its poor man's ketchup cooking.

Is Tokyo the mecca of food? I don't know now but its narrow minded to say one
city trumps them all.

------
curiousgal
Best in what sense? Food is a matter of taste.

------
nodamage
Tokyo does have really great food, but let's not delude ourselves here, there
are entire categories of cuisine that you simply won't find properly done in
Japan. For starters, anything spicy (Thai, Indian, Mexican) tends to be
severely lacking.

------
erikb
starts off quite well, but then the article starts to disagree with itself and
argues "well, the stuff we don't have I don't care about anyways". If you
think this argument is reasonable then it actually applies to everything,
everywhere. If I only care about what's great to eat in vietnam then it's the
best place in the world that has everything in awesome, because the other
stuff is not interesting to me anyways.

------
michele_f
Did Donal Trump write this article?

------
Oletros
> But you know what I don’t ever really eat? Spanish food. I don’t have to eat
> paella ever again. Spain’s a country I like to visit, but we’re talking
> about foods that I generally eat or I want to eat on a day-to-day basis.

If he thinks paella is Spain's main food he doesn't know anything

~~~
ktRolster
What is Spain's main food? When I was there, I tried to eat tapas whenever
possible.

~~~
Oletros
Spain, as a I suppose almost all the countries, doesn't have a "main food".

Paella is not even a food, it is just a dish with concrete ingredients and 99%
of what is sold as paella is not paella, it is a rice dish.

EDIT: Legumes (beans, chickpeas and lentils) are the ingredients in the day to
day dishes

~~~
zeropoint46
I know paella as a rice dish with saffron plus other stuff like meat and
veggies. The point, at least, I'm making is that if you talk to someone and
ask them to think about Italian, Japanese, Chinese, etc food, they have a
pretty good idea of what comprises that cultures culinary "menu". With Spain I
don't see that. And I'm not saying this sarcastically, I'd really like to know
for next time I go there, cause I feel like I'm missing something, and its not
10 year old jamon and eggs...

~~~
Oletros
Yap, it happens the same with cheese or wine, the famous ones are French or
Italian.

A good start for the variety is
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_cuisine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_cuisine)
even when the pictures at the right are wrong. It is not mixed paella and
pintxos are not common in Catalonia.

~~~
zeropoint46
Thanks, I'll remember to check the wiki again next time I go. I do think it's
funny 2 out of 3 of the first dishes at the top of the page are paella and
jamon...

