James Murphy of the band LCD Soundsystem is to launch his own brand of coffee, but he’s not the first musician to be lured by the beverage

Should we be surprised that LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy is trading his beats for beans and planning to launch his own brand of coffee? Not really – the surprise is that someone usually so ahead of the curve would have left it this long. After all, Will Oldham announced his own Bonny Billy Blend of coffee in January (overtones of “chocolate, leather and non-wacky tobaccy”, apparently). And David Lynch, who released his debut album last year, has his signature on bags of coffee sold through his website.

Mr Scruff’s organic English Breakfast tea was a labour of love, involving trips to Assam to choose the leaves. Moby founded a Lower East Side teahouse called Teany (teaNY, get it?), and Billy Corgan wants to follow in his footsteps by opening one in Chicago, making opening teahouses a favourite pastime of annoying bald musicians from the 90s.

Why warm beverages? The obvious answer would be that it’s just an expensive folly, the credit-crunch equivalent of Roger Daltrey’s trout farm. But having tried both Lynch’s coffee and Mr Scruff’s tea, I can confirm that both are fine products, so maybe they are on to something. Are you listening, Lady Gaga? There’s a gap in the chai market you’re not exploiting here.

Scrolling down a recipe on screen during hands-on cooking is a mixed experience

My favourite cookbooks show the scars of countless mealtimes: the singed flyleaf from the time I panicked with a hot roasting tray; the dubious gravy stains; the dried fingerprints of flour from that ill-fated Victoria sponge.

So how practical is it to use recipes on cookery apps? Can a phone or iPad cope with the splatters of the kitchen? And how do you scroll to the next stage of a recipe when your hands are covered in flour or lemon juice or potato peelings?

First, I try out Epicurious, the app attached to the popular American foodie website. With more then 30,000 recipes, it’s much more comprehensive than the average book, and it’s free (though it costs £1.49 to sync the app with recipes you may have stored on the site). It’s easy to navigate: there’s an index featuring everything from “weekend brunch” to “bubbly cocktails”, and useful graded sections labelled “I can barely cook” and “I cook like a pro”. There’s also a nifty “shopping list” function: select a recipe, and the app imports the ingredients into a list, which you can then tick off as you go round a shop.

Many of the recipes sound exotically American (savoury pumpkin pie soup with cinnamon marshmallows, pepita streusel and whipped crème fraiche) or Hispanic (salmorejo; tacos al pastor). The measures, too, are all US-style – cups, 15-ounce cans – so when I do finally select a recipe (butternut squash and cannellini soup with bacon) and get cooking, I waste a good while frantically Googling the conversions.

I’ll blame this – as well as the fact that my phone keeps going to sleep, meaning I’m forever jabbing at the screen with squash-covered fingers – for the fact that I put in double the correct quantity of chicken stock, and the soup bubbles out all over the hob.

I fare better the next day with a British-designed app, Dishy (priced at £2.99). It has only 95 recipes, but you can search by course, ingredient, time or dietary requirements; there’s a shopping list tool; and the step-by-step guides are easy to follow. I make a rustic sausage casserole for dinner; not only is it delicious, but a built-in countdown timer ensures that I fry the sausages for exactly the right time. Best of all, the app somehow manages to override my phone’s sleep function, so I don’t keep having to rinse my hands to avoid slathering the screen with gunk.

Day three is the turn of Great British Chefs (also £2.49), a much-praised app featuring around 180 recipes devised by Michelin-starred chefs such as Marcus Wareing, Nuno Mendes and Tom Aikens. It looks fabulous – lots of sumptuous photography – but most of the recipes are pitched far above my basic skill level and budget (since when were cheese beignets and a burrata, pea, grapefruit, caviar and leek salad classed as “easy”?).

But Daniel Clifford’s cheese scones sound good, so I have a go; the method is easy enough, and there’s a handy voice-activation tool, so you can shout at your phone rather than cover it with sticky dough. The scones turn out almost perfect.

Last I try another British chef known for keeping things simple. Jamie Oliver has a number of apps out. I go for Jamie’s 20 Minute Meals. At £4.99, it’s pricey, but it’s well-designed and simple, and the videos are definitely pitched more at my level. The pea and prawn risotto recipe makes an easy and delicious weekday lunch (though it takes me a lot longer than 20 minutes). But there’s no voice activation, so I’m back to having to wash my hands every few minutes to scroll to the next stage.

David Levene takes a stroll down Omoide Yokochō – Memory Lane – to try out old school Japanese delicacies such as salamander, loach and viper wine. It’s all good for the stamina

Sugar is as toxic to the liver as alcohol and is at the root of obesity and certain types of liver disease, claim US scientists

Sugar should be regulated in the same way as alcohol and tobacco because its increasing use in processed foods poses a significant danger to public health, according to a group of scientists. They advocate controlling sales to children under 17 and taxing sugary foods.

Sugar, they argue, is as toxic to the liver as alcohol and overconsumption is at the root of growing public health problems including obesity and certain types of liver disease.

In an opinion article for the journal Nature, Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), said that, over the past 50 years, consumption of sugar had trebled worldwide. “Authorities consider sugar as ‘empty calories’ – but there is nothing empty about these calories. A growing body of scientific evidence is showing that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases. A little is not a problem, but a lot kills – slowly.”

For the first time in human history, long-term diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes now pose a greater health burden worldwide than infectious diseases, according to the United Nations, contributing to 35m deaths annually. “There are now 30% more people who are obese than who are undernourished,” said the UCSF scientists. “Economic development means that the populations of low- and middle-income countries are living longer, and therefore are more susceptible to non-communicable diseases; 80% of deaths attributable to them occur in these countries.”

International bodies concerned with public health must consider limiting people’s intake of sugars such as fructose, high-fructose corn syrup and sucrose, said the scientists. Rather than focusing on limiting fat and salt, food regulators should turn their attention to “added sugar”, which the UCSF team defined as any sweetener containing fructose that is added to food during processing.

Sugar induces many of the diseases associated with “metabolic syndrome”, including high blood pressure, diabetes and accelerated ageing. “It can also be argued that fructose exerts toxic effects on the liver that are similar to those of alcohol,” said the UCSF scientists. “This is no surprise, because alcohol is derived from the fermentation of sugar.”

Preliminary studies have also linked sugar consumption to cancer and cognitive decline. “Consequently, we propose adding taxes to processed foods that contain any form of added sugars,” wrote Lustig, Schmidt and Brindis. “This would include sweetened fizzy drinks (soda), other sugar-sweetened beverages (for example, juice, sports drinks and chocolate milk) and sugared cereal … Another option would be to limit sales during school operation, or to designate an age limit (such as 17) for the purchase of drinks with added sugar, particularly soda.”

Dr Tim Lobstein, director of policy and programmes at the International Obesity Task Force, said sugar consumption was a major battleground for public health. “The large food manufacturers are very reluctant to see any restrictions on the use of cheap, bulk ingredients like sugars and starches. In the UK we have seen a gradual decline in sugar purchases, but this has been amply made up by an increase in sugar added to manufactured products, including ready meals, soups, snack foods and alcoholic drinks, and the last decade has seen record purchases of confectionery and soft drinks, despite endless health education campaigns.

“There is certainly rising interest in taxing sugary foods, and treasuries will see this as an opportunity to boost state income while helping improve our diets.”

One of the main reasons sugar has become such a problem is that it is impossible to avoid in modern society, argued the UCSF scientists. “Evolutionarily, sugar was available to our ancestors as fruit for only a few months a year (at harvest time), or as honey, which was guarded by bees. But in recent years, sugar has been added to nearly all processed foods, limiting consumer choice. Nature made sugar hard to get; man made it easy.”

A spokesperson for Sugar Nutrition UK, a group funded by sugar producers, said that over many years, a number of expert committees, including those from the European Food Safety Authority and the World Health Organisation, had examined the scientific evidence relating to the consumption of sugar and other carbohydrates. “All have concluded that the balance of available evidence does not implicate sugar at the level currently consumed in any of the ‘lifestyle diseases’ such as obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease, or cancer at any site.”

However, Dr Julie Sharp, senior science information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: “Research suggests that excess bodyweight is linked to up to 17,000 cases of cancer a year in the UK, making it one of the most important risk factors for cancer after smoking. Foods high in sugar have lots of ‘empty calories’, meaning they can contribute to weight gain but don’t have much nutritional value.

“Limiting sugar intake is just one thing people can do to try and maintain a healthy weight, along with eating a balanced diet high in fibre, fruit and vegetables and low in red and processed meat, saturated fat and salt.”

Pheasant can be tough if not cooked correctly. This quick method keeps the bird tender

The next week or so offers the last opportunity to eat pheasant, as the season is drawing to a close. Pheasant has a tendency to be quite tough if not cooked correctly. I’ve adapted the usual way of pot-roasting it whole to make it quicker and keep the bird tender.

(Serves six)
6 pheasant legs
Groundnut oil
2 carrots
1 onion
2 sticks celery
1 bulb of garlic
2 sprigs of thyme
2 tbsps chopped parsley
3 crushed black peppercorns
½ tsp tomato puree
200ml red wine
300ml chicken stock

In an ovenproof pan add a touch of groundnut oil. Season the meat and sear in the pan till it colours lightly. Remove and set aside. Add the vegetables, garlic, herbs and spices to the pan, then the tomato puree, and cook for two minutes. Put the pheasant legs back into the pan, add the wine and reduce.

Add the chicken stock and enough water to cover the meat and place in the oven for 10-20 minutes at 180C/gas mark 4. The legs will be ready when you can bend them easily. If the sauce is too thin, reduce on the stove (having removed the vegetables and meat).

Serve with crushed swede or mashed potato and finish with chopped parsley.

• Angela Hartnett is chef patron at Murano restaurant and consults at the Whitechapel Gallery and Dining Room, London. Twitter.com/angelahartnett

I’m often asked about veganism. It’s simple, I believe discrimination against species is as distasteful as any other kind

I have been a vegan for seven years. I prefer chocolate cakes to lentils, I don’t spend my evenings sifting through layers of moss in search of nutrients, I won’t eat it just because you made it and I don’t value sea kittens above humans. Although I had already been vegetarian for four years, I waited until I was about to leave home to tell my parents I was going vegan. Mum looked at me across the dinner table. “You’re not going to be awkward about it though, are you?”

I went vegan for ethical, not dietary reasons. I do not think humans have the right to oppress or abuse other species simply because they are intellectually weaker. Toddlers are intellectually weak, but you’re unlikely to find one in a casserole. To me, human rights and animal rights go together. Humans have a responsibility to care for animals and other humans because both have the ability to suffer. Both are capable of experiencing pleasure, fear and pain. I find discrimination on the grounds of species as distasteful as discrimination on the grounds of race or sex.

Ethical vegans are often asked variations of the same dilemmas. “If you were stranded in a barren wasteland, starving, and someone offered you a beef burger, would you refuse to eat it?” The answer is no. If I was literally starving and the hummus wells had run dry, I would eat the burger because my survival depended on it. But I don’t live in a barren wasteland, I live in Manchester, and since Media City was built we’ve had shops here. It is unnecessary for me to consume animal products for nutritional purposes. Vegans can obtain all the nutrients available in an omnivorous diet with the exception of vitamin B12, which many vegan foods are fortified with.

In recent years, there has been a vast increase in the number of dietary vegans; the most high-profile being Bill Clinton and Mike Tyson. Some people go vegan as a way of losing weight or lowering their cholesterol, but they choose not to look into the ethics of their diets. They know how many calories are in a raisin, but they don’t know that male dairy calves, useless to the dairy industry, are usually killed at birth. The same fate awaits newborn male chicks in egg farms and hens that cannot lay the unnaturally high number of eggs their industry demands. Many people are not aware that dairy cows are separated from their calves just days after they are born so humans can drink their milk. Free-range and organic farming methods are no exception. Animals, like humans, should not be viewed purely as economic commodities.

Another thing vegans are often questioned about is their priorities. “Why would you care about intensive cattle farming when there are children dying of malaria in Ethiopia?” There doesn’t have to be a competitive element to compassion. We don’t have to pick sides. “Sorry, I’m afraid I can only care about one thing at a time, and today’s thing is sustainable recycling in Honduras. Now be a dear and pass me the stilton.”

There is not a clear divide between ethical and dietary vegans, and dietary vegans have certainly increased the availability of vegan options. When I went vegan, most soya milk curdled in instant coffee, and the one commonly available brand of vegan “cheese” looked and tasted like plasticine. Vegan cupcakes are now impossible to avoid in the more self-consciously fashionable parts of town, and for this I thank the dietary vegans.

• This article was commissioned after a suggestion from ShadyMC. If there’s a subject you’d like to see covered on Comment is free, please visit our You tell us page

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Only in Tokyo can you sample the finest sushi from a skycraper, try tofu beside a carp pond or taste tempura under an oversized fedora. Robbie Swinnerton picks the best upmarket restaurants

• As featured in our Tokyo city guide

Kozue

No other restaurant in Tokyo has a setting to rival Kozue. Perched far above the fray on the 40th floor of the Park Hyatt, Kozue is still as swish as the day it opened in 1994, with a contemporary look (soaring ceiling, stylish tables and chairs) to match the confident modern inflections on kaiseki (japan’s version of haute cuisine). The menu features torafugu puffer fish in winter, ayu sweetfish in summer, matsutake mushrooms in autumn, and year-round shabu-shabu of perfectly marbled beef from premium wagyu cattle. Book a window seat to enjoy a peerless view of the western hills and even (if the weather gods are smiling) Mt Fuji’s cone silhouetted in the distance.
• Park Hyatt Hotel, 3-7-1-2 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, +81 3 5323 3460, tokyo.park.hyatt.com, lunch from ¥3900 (around £34), dinner from £115. Open daily 11.30am-2.30pm and 5.30pm-10pm, closed Wed. English spoken

Mikawa Zezankyo

Tetsuya Saotome produces flawless tempura, succulent morsels of premium seafood and vegetables served straight from his deep-frying wok to your plate. He follows the classic Edomae style, using only ingredients that (with a couple of exceptions) would have been available in 150 years ago. He works solo, which is why he can only seat nine at his counter. The cuisine and configuration may be traditional, but the eclectic decor – from European antiques to traditional lacquer-work and an extractor hood in the shape of a fedora – certainly isn’t. There are many contenders for the crown of Tokyo’s finest tempura, but none take it to quite the same level of idiosyncratic artistry. Zezankyo is hidden away in the residential back streets to the east of the Sumida river, but it well repay the effort and taxi fare to get there.
• 1-3-1 Fukuzumi, Koto-ku, +81 3 3643 8383, lunch from £90, dinner from £140, mikawa-zezankyo.jimdo.com. Open Thurs-Tues 11.30am-1.30pm and 5pm-9pm. English not spoken

Nodaiwa

The speciality at Nodaiwa is unagi, charcoal-broiled freshwater eel. This is one of Tokyo’s unsung plebeian pleasures, but here served with refinement and a grand setting – a transplanted timber mountain farmhouse. The fifth-generation owner-chef uses eel caught in the wild rather than from fish farms and the flavour is incomparable. The cosy ground-floor dining room is fine for a simple (but rich and satisfying) lunch of unaju (juicy eel fillets broiled golden-brown, on a bed of white rice). Up the stately staircase, the private rooms are best for a full banquet. The highlight: shirayaki, eel that’s lightly steamed and grilled, then topped with caviar. Perfect with a bottle of crisp local koshu wine.
• 1-5-4 Higashi-Azabu, Minato-ku, +81 3 3583 7852, nodaiwa.com, set menu £60, a la carte from £17. Open 11am-1.30pm and 5am-8pm. Some English spoken

Nihon Ryori Ryugin

Ryugin sprang to prominence on the back of chef Seiji Yamamoto’s imaginative application of modern cooking techniques to classic Japanese cuisine. These days, he has no need for any molecular magic: his vibrant contemporary kaiseki speaks for itself. Yamamoto is now at the top of his game (as recognised by his third Michelin star), drawing massive depths of flavour from his premium ingredients – such as sakuradai snapper, from the Naruto Strait close to his hometown, creamy an-kimo (monkfish liver, known as the foie gras of the ocean), or hand-reared Iwate wagyu beef. Yamamoto’s candy pear dessert nitro-chilled to -196C and served with a sauce of the same fruit heated to a scalding 99C, is the stuff of legend.
• Side Roppongi Building 1F, 7-17-24 Roppongi, Minato-ku, +81 3 3423 8006, nihonryori-ryugin.com, dinner £200. Open Mon-Sat 6pm-1am (last sitting 10.30pm). English spoken

Aronia de Takazawa

Chef Yoshiaki Takazawa’s bijou restaurant has long been one of Tokyo’s most intriguing secrets, more talked about than actually visited. Hardly surprising, since Aronia only sits two tables (maximum eight people) each evening. His French-Japanese signature dishes include: a ratatouille terrine, with vegetables layered into multicoloured cubes; carpenter’s salade niçoise, with sashimi tuna and tapenade sauce solidified in the shape of spanners and screws; and his hot balloon of seafood slow-cooked with bamboo shoot and seaweed. Takazawa stands centre-stage in this hushed, windowless chamber, with its sleek wood panelling and dramatic spot lighting, preparing or finishing each course himself, while his wife Akiko serves and explains in faultless English. • Sanyo Akasaka Bldg 2F, 3-5-2 Akasaka, Minato-ku, +81 3 3505 5052, aroniadetakazawa.com, from £140. Open daily 6pm-9pm (last sitting). English spoken

Les Creations de Narisawa

Creativity lies at the heart of the eclectic modern cuisine dreamed up by Yoshihiro Narisawa at his impeccably polished Aoyama restaurant, with its swish, modern dining room and gleaming kitchen revealed through massive picture windows like a balletic silent movie. The fundamentals may be French but Narisawa’s ideas and execution are his own: from the foraged herbs and edible soil to the damper-style bread cooked at the table. At times, it all feels overly cerebral, but his delectable char-cooked vegetables and wagyu beef bring a sensual satisfaction, and the desserts seem to never stop arriving. Narisawa also boasts a cellar especially strong in Burgundies, as well as a groaning cheese trolley.
• 2-6-15 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku, +81 3 5785 0799, narisawa-yoshihiro.com, lunch from £65, dinner from £185. Open Mon-Sat noon-3pm and 6.30-9pm. English spoken

Sushi Mizutani

Sushi doesn’t get much finer than at Mizutani – or more austere. There is virtually no decoration on the plain ochre walls of the small 9th-floor room where Hachiro Mizutani holds court. Nor are there tables, just one long counter; a single massive timber of smooth-scrubbed cedar and 10 plain chairs. The air is crisp with the faint aroma of rice vinegar and the atmosphere is hushed. Sushi veteran Mizutani is taciturn in his own language and speaks no English, but there’s little that needs saying, except to specify beer or sake (there’s only one brand of each). The sushi arrives in a set order, determined according to whatever is in peak season. A succession of flawless morsels of seafood on lightly vinegared rice kept at exactly skin temperature, it will include several cuts of the finest bluefin you have ever tasted, and the best abalone too. A couple of caveats: perfume is frowned upon, as are cameras and mobile phones. Nothing is allowed to disturb the serenity.
• Juno Ginza Seiwa Building 9F, 8-7-7 Ginza, Chuo-ku, +81 3 3573 5258, lunch from £130, dinner from £180. Open Mon-Sat 11.30am-1.30pm and 5pm-9.30pm. English not spoken

Tofuya Ukai

In a city of contrasts and surprises, few are greater than discovering the traditional garden, carp ponds and sprawling low-rise wooden architecture at Tofuya Ukai. There is no central dining room, just a warren of private chambers (most with tatami mats and low tables, but some with chairs) with garden views built around the timber buildings of a former sake brewery. The multi-course kaiseki meals focus on tofu, produced freshly at Ukai’s own small workshop in the hills west of Tokyo. In winter, the house-special tosui-tofu delivers a triple whammy of bean goodness: cubes of tofu cooked down at your table in a creamy, savoury casserole of soya milk blended with chicken broth, topped with layers of yuba tofu skin
• 4-4-13 Shiba-Koen, Minato-ku, +81 3 3436 1028, ukai.co.jp, lunch from £50, dinner from £75. Open daily 11am-10pm (last sitting 8pm). English spoken

Bird Land Ginza

Toshihiro Wada was one of the first artisan chefs to elevate the humble craft of grilling skewers of chicken (yakitori) to a cuisine of substance and subtlety. He uses only top-quality free-range shamo gamecock, cooking the morsels of meat and offal over premium Bincho charcoal. Open the meal with his trademark liver pate, continue with wasabi-coated rare sasami white meat, and don’t miss the sansho-yaki, succulent breast meat dusted with piquant Japanese pepper. In another break from the tradition of smoky neighbourhood grills, Wada stocks a small cellar of Burgundies and New World wines – perfect with grilled fare of this caliber. • Tsukamoto Building B1F, 4-2-15 Ginza, Chuo-ku, +81 3 5250 1081, ginza-birdland.sakura.ne.jp, dinner from £55. Open Tue-Sat 5pm-9.30pm. Some English spoken

Akasaka Kikunoi

From the bamboo-lined, lantern-lit path to the simple, traditional wooden decor of the rooms (with either chairs or tatami mats), Kikunoi is a microcosm of traditional Kyoto. The Tokyo outpost of one of Kyoto’s most illustrious kaiseki houses, it serves the rarified cuisine of Japan’s ancient capital – expect to spend a good three hours at table if you’re having the full-course dinner. For a more concise, affordable introduction, the lunchtime Kodaiji bento is an exquisite tasting menu in miniature, served in a lacquered box with several side dishes. Owner-chef Yoshihiro Murata is revered for the depth of umami he coaxes from the dashi soup stock that underpins all his dishes.
• 6-13-8 Akasaka, Minato-ku, +81 3 3568 6055, kikunoi.jp, lunch from £45, dinner from £140. Open Mon-Sat noon-1pm and 5pm-9pm (last sitting). English spoken

For more information go to the Japan National Tourism Organisation’s website: jnto.go.jp/eng

• Robbie Swinnerton writes the Tokyo Food File column for The Japan Times

Whether you fancy sushi, noodles or top tempura, it’s easy to find good, cheap restaurants in Tokyo, says Robbie Swinnerton

• As featured in our Tokyo city guide

Kanda Yabu Soba

In a city that has celebrated the understated flavour of soba (buckwheat noodles) for centuries, no restaurant is as revered as Kanda Yabu Soba. Founded more than 100 years ago, it’s a handsome, free-standing wooden villa in its own tranquil garden courtyard with the feel of a traditional tea house. Kimono-clad waitresses bustle about, ferrying food and drink from kitchen to table (either with chairs or on tatami mats). Locals prefer their noodles cold, as zaru soba (plain noodles with a dip) or ten-zaru (the same with batter-fried shrimp). In winter the classic dish is kamo-nanban, hot soba in a rich broth with slices of duck breast and leek.
• 2-10 Kanda-Awajicho, Chiyoda-ku, +81 3 3251 0287, norenkai.net/english/shop/yabusoba/index.html, soba noodles from around £6. Open daily 11.30am-8pm. English menu

Tsunahachi

Tempura – batter-fried morsels of seafood and vegetables – is one of the supreme delicacies of Japanese cuisine and, like sushi, at the upper end it can cost a prince’s ransom. Hidden away on the upper restaurant floor of a mall close to Shinjuku JR Station, Tsunahachi proves it doesn’t have to. Bright, modern and drawing a youngish demographic, it brings some innovative nuances to the tradition, such as serving a choice of four different kinds of salt with the tempura instead of just the standard soya-based dipping sauce. Drop in for a quick, affordable lunch of tendon (shrimp and a few cuts of vegetables served on rice), or settle in for a leisurely dinner, picking from the considerable side menu of sashimi and other Japanese delicacies.
• Lumine 7F, 3-38-1 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, +81 3 3352 1012, tunahachi.co.jp, lunch from ¥1,260 (£10.50), dinner from ¥2,625 (£22), English menu. Open daily 11am-11pm

Sushi-Bun

Tokyo’s central fish market is an essential part of most visitors’ itineraries, and so is breakfast at one of its legendary hole-in-the-wall sushi counters. The seafood could hardly be fresher, and the sushi is as good as you’d expect at places charging four times as much. Sushi-Bun is one of the best in the market – it’s just as tiny (10 seats at the counter at a pinch) and as tasty as the others, but it’s left out of most guidebooks so the queues are usually shorter. Most people go for the set sushi menu (from £22 for eight servings of whatever seafood is in season, plus soup), which includes their succulent house-special, anago sea eel. The rough sake they serve with it, though, is far from premium.
• 8 Chuo Shijo Building, 5-2-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, +81 3 3541 3860, tsukijinet.com, sushi chef’s menu (omakase) from £22, English menu. Open Mon-Sat 6am-2.30pm, closed Sun and holidays

Kushiwakamaru

Yakitori – bite-sized cuts of chicken (and some vegetables) skewered, grilled and then seasoned with salt or slathered with thick soy sauce – is classic blue-collar fare: cheerful, affordable and best washed down with flagons of lager, sake or shochu. The cheapest places tend to be raucous and smoky, and often specialise in offal, but Kushiwakamaru hits just the right note. The feel is casual and accessible, while the charcoal-grilled chicken is well above average. There are always a few specials, such as duck or quail. And don’t miss the negima (chicken and leek), the tsukune (balls of minced chicken) or the tebasaki chicken wings (forget chopsticks – these you pick up and gnaw with your hands).
• 1-19-2 Kami-Meguro, Meguro-ku, +81 3 3715 9292, r.tabelog.com/tokyo/A1317/A131701/13003193, yakitori from £1.60/stick, English menu. Open Mon-Fri 5.30pm-midnight, Sat-Sun 5pm-midnight

Nogizaka Uoshin

Five minutes’ walk from the opulent Roppongi midtown complex, the Nogizaka branch of the Uoshin group sets the template for the genre that’s come to be known as fish shack dining. Fresh seafood served any which way you like, at prices that reflect the rudimentary decor: bright lights, colourful fishermen’s banners and no-frills seating. Uoshin’s parent company is a seafood wholesaler, guaranteeing freshness and a great variety of seasonal seafood. You can’t go wrong here: generous sashimi platters; whole squid or other fish grilled to order; warming winter fish stews; and humongous portions of sushi.
• 9-6-32 Akasaka, Minato-ku, +81 3 3405 0411, uoshins.com, full meals from around £30, including two hours of all you can drink. Open Lunch 12-2pm on weekdays; dinner 5pm-12am; Sunday and holidays 4pm-11pm

Maruni

Maruni does barbecue in a style all its own. The building is an old converted rice merchant’s store that somehow got left behind among the modern office buildings close to Shinbashi Station. The decor is all gaudy black and red. Instead of tables and chairs, there are half a dozen oil drums, each with a charcoal grill set into the top. You just order a plate or two of meat, then grill it yourself. The beef is all from the famously pampered Japanese wagyu cattle. Maruni doesn’t serve the super-premium steak grades so it’s all highly affordable.
• 1-11-1 Shinbashi, Minato-ku, +81 3 3572 1129r.gnavi.co.jp/gar6100/lang/en/, grilled beef from around ¥550 (£4.60 a plate. Open Mon-Thurs, Sat 5pm-midnight, Fri 5pm-4am. English menu

Ippudo

Ramen is Chinese in origin, but it’s unquestionably Japan’s de facto favourite late-night fast food. You find ramen counters on virtually every street corner, serving up nourishing, steaming hot bowls of wheat noodles in rich, meaty broth, invariably topped with slices of chashu pork, half a boiled egg and chewy strips of menma bamboo. Within the genre, though, numerous regional variations have evolved: all are available in Tokyo. Where to start? You can’t go wrong with Ippudo, a chain (now with a New York outlet) that flies the flag for Fukuoka ramen. The noodles are light and the tonkotsu soup (made from long-simmered pork bones) rich and satisfying.
• 1-3-13 Hiroo, Shibuya-ku, +81 3 5420 2225, ippudo.com/store/tokyo/ebisu.html. Open Mon-Sat 11am-4am, Sun 11am-2am　

Shin-Hinomoto

There’s nothing in the West quite the equivalent of an izakaya: neither pub nor restaurant, it’s a place for eating — often well and always cheaply — as much as for drinking; and, just as importantly, for de-stressing after work. Shin-Hinomoto is a classic example. It looks unpromising, a cramped room full of noise and cigarette smoke shoehorned in under the railway tracks in Yurakucho. It’s a typical izakaya in all but one respect: the master of the house is British. Known to one and all simply as Andy, he married into the business and now runs it. Seafood is his speciality, which he sources each day from Tsukiji market. But you’ll also find chicken, cooked vegetables and simple salads alongside the tempura and sashimi.
• 2-4-4 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku, +81 3 3214 8021, andysfish.com/Shin-Hinomoto. Open Mon-Sat 5pm-midnight, English spoken

Little Okinawa

The food and drink of Japan’s southernmost prefecture are so distinctive they could be a totally different cuisine. The Okinawa archipelago is far closer to China than to Tokyo and the influences are marked. Little Okinawa is a welcoming, long-time (yes, and very compact) bastion of this subtropical culture, and it serves all the island exotica. Start with umi-budo, seaweed resembling miniature grapes, and jimami-dofu, a tofu-like custard made from peanuts. Continue with goat sashimi and pig’s ear (crunchy, but served with a nice vinegar-sharp sauce). And don’t miss the goya-champur (scrambled egg, tofu and bitter gourd) and rafutei, pork belly soft-simmered till you can cut it with a chopstick. Wash it all down with shots of awamori, a fiery liquor that can pack a wallop.
• 8-7-10 Ginza, Chuo-ku, +81 3 3572 2930, little-okinawa.co.jp, ramen from £6.50, English menu. Open noon-1.30pm, 5pm-3am Mon-Fri, noon-1.30pm, 4pm-midnight Sat and Sun

Tonki

The first thing you notice about Tonki is how bright it is: it’s as spick and span as an operating theatre. The chefs wear spotless white uniforms, the kitchen gleams and the wooden counter and tables are scrubbed smooth. Quite remarkable for a place where the only form of cooking is deep-frying. Tonki’s speciality (in fact the only thing it serves) is tonkatsu: cutlets of pork that are dipped in breadcrumbs, then fried till the outside is a crispy golden-brown and the meat inside perfectly tender and juicy. You have two basic choices: rosu (blubbery-rich belly meat) or hire (lean loin “fillet”), though the latter is also offered as kushi, bit-sized cuts cooked on skewers. Most people order the set meal, with rice and miso soup on the side, leaving as soon as they finish.
• 1-1-2 Shimo-Meguro, Meguro-ku, +81 3 3491 9928, tonkatsu from £7, set meals from £14. Open 4pm-10.45pm, closed Tues and third Mon of the month

For more information go to the Japan National Tourism Organisation’s website: jnto.go.jp/eng

• Robbie Swinnerton writes the Tokyo Food File column for The Japan Times

A simple salted crisp is a fine thing. Why do manufacturers insist in drenching their latest creations in weird-tasting chemicals?

Following their horribly named “Do us a flavour” marketing campaign of a couple of years ago, Walkers have just announced a new irritating gimmick – what’s that flavour? – introducing three “mystery” crisp flavours for the public to identify. I’ve just tried them. Packet A tastes of salt and stale milk, and a glance at the ingredients reveals it contains “mystery dairy seasoning”. Packet B smells of concentrated tomato syrup and tastes of dried blood (that’ll be the suitable-for-vegetarians “mystery meaty seasoning”); while packet C is vaguely curried and yoghurty and may turn out to be chicken tikka masala (it has pictures of chicken breast, chillies and coriander on the packet “for inspiration”).

I pine – don’t you? – for a time when crisps were just crisps. Why this need to take nice shards of fried potato and dust them in weird chemicals that never resemble what they’re supposed to? Walkers have decked their latest packets in pictures of fresh sage, chives, ripe tomatoes, crumbly parmesan and – good God – yellow peppers. This is presumably supposed to make the crisps look more upmarket, but it just seems grasping and odd.

“Posh crisps are the biggest scam of our time,” said Jay Rayner a while back. Four quid is too much for a small sachet of fried potatoes, even if the spuds have been “fried in extra virgin olive oil” (a stupid idea) or “dusted with pink Himalayan rock salt” (posh salt being an even worse scam than posh crisps). India Knight is another journalist who can’t abide expensive chips. They’re “annoyingly crispy,” she says, “so there’s no meltiness at any point, only these spiky shards – and to me they taste overwhelmingly of stale oil … Crisps are fried potatoes. They are not a thing that needs to be faffed about with.”

The trend for fancy flavoured crisps began in the 1950s with the appearance of then-exciting flavours like cheese and onion or salt and vinegar. Rayner Banham’s delightful essay The Crisp at the Crossroads, written in 1970, explains the rapid changes British crisps were undergoing at that time, how advances in packaging and processing were making possible new flavours and longer shelflife, and increasing profits for manufacturers. “The old basic salted crisp,” Banham wrote, “has lost almost half the market to new fancy flavours”.

The situation has only worsened. High-end crisps – this should be an oxymoron – seem unable to stay happy as cheese and onion or salt and vinegar, but powder themselves instead in the supposed aromas of Parmesan and shallot, or balsamic vinegar and Alaskan sea salt. Many posh crisps, with their airs and refinement, seem to insinuate the cost renders them somehow less unhealthy than cheap ones. (And a baked crisp is no crisp at all.) Most loathsome of all are those crisp flavours that seek to shake off their snacky heritage and try instead to imitate proper dishes: chicken chow mein, roast beef and yorkshire pudding, or scallops with coriander foam.

Knight calls Walkers’ ready salted “an honest crisp”. The market leader makes 11m packets a day and, somewhat worryingly, is the most recognised brand of any kind among children aged seven to 15 (above The Simpsons, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and the Wii). Plain Walkers are excellent crisps – pleasantly flimsy, if a mite oversalted. But even before this new adventure in flavour experimentation, their “Sunbites” range featured the likes of sun-ripened sweet chilli and sour cream with cracked black pepper. Yeurgh.

I went to the Burts factory in Devon a couple of years ago – there’s a truly gripping video of me stirring the crisps here – and though I was sure the owners made a decent crisp, I’m still unconvinced that lobster or bloody mary are acceptable flavourings for them. Tyrrells are nothing special. I admit to a fondness for the firm crunch of a Kettle Chip, for the way those crisps wriggle and curl like scratchings, and for that company’s relatively green credentials. But a simple crisp is a fine and perfect thing. It needs no adornment other than salt. It should stand proudly as a democratic, egalitarian food, enjoyed by anyone – not as some shibboleth of lifestyle, wealth or taste. What other food is so meet and fitting in that other great leveller, the British pub?

The sap won’t be rising for a few weeks, but when it does you need to be ready to tap it

Nothing in the forager’s calendar is more seasonal than birch sap. Blackberries, wild garlic and most other wild foods are around for months; with birch sap you have two weeks, three at the most. In Dorset, where I live, it is approximately the middle two weeks of March, but it can be slightly earlier or later, depending on the weather. It may seem a little early to talk about it now but you do need to be prepared for birch tapping – mentally, physically and administratively – so I am giving you a head start.

I am going to come clean. I do not see the point of birch sap wine. With most alcoholic drinks the ingredients are there to provide the flavour or the sugar and sometimes both. Birch sap wine contains very little of either so it cannot do these things – it just supplies the water. But I know that a lot of people swear by the stuff and will disagree with my dismissal of what they consider to be a first class wine. If you like birch sap wine let me know and tell me why I am wrong. No, really.

Having said all that, I do love collecting birch sap so, apart from the odd batch of wine to remind myself how right I am, I make birch sap syrup to pour on my pancakes. I boil the fresh sap down until half of the water has gone, then transfer to a bain-marie (to stop it “burning”) and continue until only 10% is left. I then strain out all the bits through some muslin and add sugar to form the syrup. You can reduce it all the way to a syrup (less than 2% of what you started with!) without adding the sugar but the flavour is far too strong and bitter for most people.

So how do you go about collecting this arcane ingredient? First, of course, you will need to find some mature silver birch trees with trunks at least 25cm in diameter (downy birch won’t work) and obtain permission to drill holes in them from the owner – not always easy. (The ones outside the Tate Modern in London are too small, by the way).

You’ll also need some kit. A hand drill and drill bit, a bucket to collect the sap (I sometimes use a four litre milk container with a hole strategically cut in the side near the top), some tapered wooden plugs (candle waxed at the sharper end to seal them), a mallet and something to carry the sap home in.

You will also need some spigots or spiles. These are virtually impossible to obtain in the UK so you will have to find them online from Canada or the US where they are uses for sugar maple tapping. You can rig up something with tubes and pipes but I have never been able to stop it all leaking. Check, using a scrap of wood, that your plugs and spiles tightly match the drill bit you will be taking with you.

Off to the woods. Drill a slightly upward slanting 5cm deep hole into your chosen tree at waist height. If nothing comes out when you are half way in, the tree is dry. Stop drilling, hammer in a plug and try another tree. After three no-shows it will be worth waiting another week. If all is well, hammer in a spile, hook on your bucket through the little hole you will have made in the rim and cover it. Come back the next day to collect your sap – if you are lucky you will get about two to three litres from each tree. Very carefully plug the holes – if you don’t the sap will continue to flow and the poor tree may not recover from this added insult.

Birch sap tastes almost exactly like water – but the freshest water you have ever tasted, with just a hint of sweetness (0.7% sugar is the highest I have ever found). It does not keep very long – about four days in the fridge – so use it as soon as you can. Here is how you make the wine.

4.5 litres of birch sap
200ml white grape juice concentrate
Juice from two lemons
1.2 kg white sugar
Sachet white wine yeast
Yeast nutrient – follow instructions on packet

Gently heat the sap in a pan with the lid on to 75C and keep at that temperature for 20 minutes. Take off the heat and stir in the sugar until it is dissolved. Closely cover the pan and allow to cool. Transfer to a fermentation bucket and add the lemon juice, grape juice concentrate, yeast and yeast nutrients.

Keep the bucket closely covered for five days then siphon into a demi-john, fit the bubble-trap and leave for about two months. Rack-off into a fresh demi-john and bottle when it is all nice and clear. This stuff goes bad for a pastime, so be extra careful making sure everything is sterile and the bottles well sealed.

The flavour? Light, dry, fruity, with a faint piquancy of wet paper bag.