Sushi as an Everyday Luxury

I LOVE sushi for its straightforwardness and ease: one big bite; a few clear and clean flavors; nothing too florid, nothing too brash. I love it for its texture, at once firm and pliant, giving you something to chew if that’s your game, something that can almost be swallowed whole if you like.

I love the combined silkiness and meatiness of some of it, the connotations of luxury in that. I love its completeness: protein and starch nestled together, with just a little something extra — wasabi, shiso — for spark. I love its light impact. It can fill you, but not with guilt.

What I don’t love is the check. Sushi doesn’t come cheap, not if you insist on a modicum of quality, and not if you want to savor it in a setting with more aesthetic appeal than a Port Authority waiting area.

Audio Slide Show: Frank Bruni on Affordable Sushi Restaurants
Kanoyama, in the East Village, and Sushi Azabu, in TriBeCa, stand out in part because of their prices.

Test Your Japanese Language Skills

Entertainment or bribery?

By Karryn Miller

TOKYO —

Playing golf in Japan doesn’t come cheap. With green fees starting at around 10,000 yen a person, and reaching anywhere in the region of 50,000 yen for luxury courses, it’s a sport that has long retained an image of affluence. Over the years the pastime has been used to impress many a client, and in some cases a day of play has even been a tool to sway people’s actions and opinions.

In the early 1990s, Japan’s gift-giving society blurred the lines between gift-giving and bribery through a series of cases where people in power received presents to take home, golf-related offerings to sweeten certain deals and some extravagant nights out. Read more here.....

British Ninja Fails Mission

TOKYO —

Police on Wednesday released a British tourist who shocked onlookers by swimming naked in the moat of Japan’s Imperial Palace, concluding he had mental problems.

The bald, heavy-set and visibly agitated man was chased by officers around the palace for two hours on Tuesday. He dived into the moat then pelted them with stones.

“We decided to hand the man over to his friend without charging him as we concluded that his act was based on mental instability,” a police spokesman said.

Bystanders snapped photos of the 40-year-old, whose antics were one of the top stories on Japanese television.

A British embassy spokesman confirmed the man was British and said he received consular assistance but declined further details, citing privacy issues. Media reports said the man lived in Spain.

Tama, the Stationmaster Cat

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by pocarisweater