I live in Aichi, and I’m planning on visiting Tokyo over the New Years holidays. I’ll have a few days when I’m not meeting friends, and as I can’t travel often due to my health, I’d like to make the most of Tokyo’s wider variety of restaurants while I can. Nagoya doesn’t have the variety of international cuisine you can find in Tokyo, and as I’ll be going to plenty of Izakaya with friends, I’m more interested in non-Japanese food.
I’ll be staying in Taito-ku, so any places nearby would be great, but anywhere in the special wards is fine. I like a wide variety of food, so any recommendations are fine. Especially for January 1st, as my friends normally need the day to recover. I found South Park, a decent South Indian restaurant in Asakusa last New Year’s day, so I suspect there are other places like that open throughout the holidays.
How fancy, how long do you want to stay? It’s a bit difficult to make recommendations. You’ll find some options in Ueno station, some inside the paid area. There is a pretty good burger place nearby called andra. Quite crowded usually. Otherwise, ameyayokocho is nearby, mostly with Japanese restaurants but some other options as well, similar situation in Asakusa. Lots of tourists around there and sometimes hard to get a seat, but easier if you’re alone and fine with sitting at the counter
Somewhere casual as I’ll be alone. I’ll probably just be eating and going unless they also have decent drinks. I know plenty of places in Ameyokocho will be open, but there really isn’t anything there that I couldn’t get in Aichi, so I’m more interested in non-Japanese. As I stumbled upon the South Indian restaurant last year, I suspect there might be some other foreign-staffed restaurants that don’t close as their families aren’t in Japan, so I thought I’d ask on the off chance that anyone knows about any others.
Andra looks nice. I’ll probably check it out when I’m in Ueno.
Also, does anyone know any good sites for finding restaurants that aren’t user generated? I find Gurunavi and Tabelog overwhelming, and also lacking in detail for individual restaurants. Is there anywhere with more detailed and curated content. I like bento.com despite it’s design language being stuck in the early 2000s. Is there anything like that but in Japanese and more extensive?