A Postcard from Tokyo
It’s raining in Japan. A heavy summer downpour; sky the colour of old concrete. A fleet of square Toyota taxis—children’s drawings with polished chrome trim—move through the soup, until one stops. A driver in a pressed black uniform appears and wordlessly manoeuvres us, and our luggage, out of the rain and into the outskirts of the city. Through the mist of the passenger window you can see office blocks and apartment buildings, billboards for teeth whitening solutions and soft drinks.
Lunch at Otto's
David is grumbling, claiming he’s being coerced into drinking beer in an empty pub (albeit one of London’s loveliest, an art deco gem like few others). “No cocktails!?” he exclaims in typical soaring tone.
From our vantage point, behind pints of Timothy Taylor Landlord, in The Duke on Roger St in Bloomsbury, we can almost see over into Otto’s French Restaurant.
Drake’s in Seoul: Lunch at Chez Maum
One of the joys of eating in Seoul is that it’s a place that makes the most of the space around it. You’ll find a wine bar on the 10th floor of an apartment block, karaoke rooms hidden under shopping centres and rows of barbecue restaurants jostling up against one another inside of a meat market. When it comes to creating a space to come together and eat and drink, few are more resourceful than the Koreans.
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Revue: Mark Cho
