A TASTE OF TOKYO

PAUL EWART eats and drinks his way around Japan's largest city in four days.

DAY ONE

I'm in Kõenji - the city's youth-subcultural centre. A one-time punk neighbourhood, now home to vinyl shops and hipster-filled coffee shops.

Here, you can jostle at crowded counters as you work your way through Japanese snack food staples.

It's while ambling in the bustling neighbourhood that the smell of burning charcoal combined with roasting meat hits me - an aroma that can only mean one thing: yakitori.

I allow my nose to lead and soon find myself on Kõenji's "Yakitori street", on the west side of Kõenji Station.

This is where I watch as an attentive chef continuously rotates negima skewers over a charcoal grill, while basting them in a sweet soy sauce and mirin mix.

Also, on Kõenji "Yakitori street" a queue of hungry-looking salarymen (all in their navy suit uniforms) are seated alongside a vendor patiently waiting for their takoyaki.

Joining the queue, I'm soon served a little wooden boat of the tasty octopus and batter morsels, brushed with a sweet sauce, drizzled with Kewpie mayo and topped with seaweed and freshly shaved bonito flakes.

At the other end of Tokyo's culinary scale is kaiseki - considered Japan's version of haute cuisine.

Seated in a private dining room, in the unnamed basement restaurant at the Hoshinoya Tokyo hotel, I am treated to a fish-focused menu by chef Noriyuki Hamada (the youngest chef to win Japan's Bocuse d'Or International Gastronomic competition). Over three hours and multiple courses, French techniques are combined with Japanese seasonal produce in a memorable meal that is almost too pretty to eat.

YOKOCHO DINING