Ian Lynam has art directed and designed a new vegan cookbook by Joshua Ploeg called In Search of the Lost Taste, which he describes as “half-recipes/half-adventure/sci-fi/fantasy novella with cover illustration by comic maestro Aaron Renier and interior illustrations by the mighty overlord Nate Beaty.” Ian has a bunch of copies available for 1,200 yen postpaid if you email him.

How strange: the beautiful teahouse and sweets shop in Nakameguro Higashiya is about to close its doors (not sure on the date, but soon), yet it gets a “recommendation” post on Cool Hunting, with no mention of said closing.

Great package design work from Nosigner on a new brand of udon noodles, Kanpyo Udon, set to go on sale in June. As Spoon & Tamago’s Johnny describes them, the noodles are ” a new type of udon that use fiber-enhancing dried gourd shavings as an addition to the typically flour-only recipe.”

Time to find a new meeting spot in Roppongi. Almond Cafe — the branch which has occupied that particular corner of the Roppongi intersection since 1964 — is closing tomorrow to make way for a new building (the current building is apparently too old). This article also notes that Almond was the first company in Japan to introduce moistened hand towels (oshibori).

Marxy has the final world on the McDonald’s viral Quarter Pounder marketing in Japan over at Clast. Me, I never had a chance to check out the shops when they went black — since I’ve been based in the area, the Omotesando branch has already closed and has yet to re-open, probably as they renew the interior.

Was out in Shibuya yesterday with my friend CheapyD, and he brought me to Pakutch where I was treated to the Tower Burger pictured above. It’s actually not as gigantic as it may appear in the photo, and was delicious.

Move over BOSS, Golgo’s taking over the canned coffee racket! I don’t much care for the world of canned coffee anymore (it’s gotten to a point where I just can’t drink it — too sweet), but I absolutely love these cans featuring Golgo 13 art on them. The Mainichi has a gallery of all the cans available. Via Japan Probe.

Nendo creates chocolate pencils, or crayons, for patissier Tsujiguchi Hironobu. More images over at Dezeen.

The Flux site has a post up featuring Kozyndan writing about a visit to the Yokohama Ramen Museum. I’ve always been curious about the place, but have never taken the time to go. I guess I’m in no need of good ramen shops, living in Ikebukuro and all.

Flux is one of the projects that Jonathan Wells has been involved with ever since moving on from RES. They’ve just produced their first Flux screening at the Hammer Museum in LA, and I’m told they hope to bring it to Tokyo!

The ultimate in LOHAS! Nobuhiko Aikawa of Rice-Design creates edible tableware for a cafe. Via Dezeen.

The Sokenbicha line of tea recently had a promotion where they presented a series of tote bags (click on the orange button to see them) from various Japanese creators. The one above is by Kiiiiiii‘s Reiko!

The next big thing in guerilla retailing? One day a week restaurants, like Vegie Shokudou. As Ian Lynam reports on META no TAME:

Directions can be found here.

My new coffee mug, which my wife got for me the other day when we went to newly opened J.S. Burgers Cafe in Aoyama (it’s on the street that leads to the A to Z Cafe). The J.S. stands for “Journal Standard,” but I like to pretend they are the initials for my name.

A few months back I met up with the travel editor of FOOD & WINE magazine, who was in town doing a piece on Tokyo. Salma’s article appeared in the February 2008 issue, and she writes a bit about what we did on that day in this part.

After we had lunch at Maisen, we were walking down Omostesando, and got stopped by an editor and photographer from TOKYO GRAFFITI magazine. If you’ve never seen it, each issue is mostly made up of shots of people holding up whiteboards in which they’ve written an answer to something. The question they asked us was something in the lines of “what do you contribute to society,” and I honestly can’t remember what I wrote. They said that we would appear in a future issue, maybe the December one, but I completely forgot to check.

It would seem that the first edition of Michelin’s Tokyo guide really loves Tokyo, and is declaring it one of the best food cities in the world. Eight restaurants received the coveted 3-star rating: Japanese restaurants Kanda, Koju and Hamadaya, French restaurants Quintessence, Joel Robuchon and L’osier, and sushi restaurants Sukiyabashi Jiro and Sushi Mizutani. In all, 150 restaurants make the cut, so time to get eating! (Thanks, Max.)