08-25-2002, 10:13 AM
A drink is only as good as the pub that serves it
By ANGELA JEFFS
We are sitting in Enjoy! House, a small pub cum club in Ebisu. There is hardly room to swing a cat, yet somehow a bar, tables and a minuscule dance floor are all squeezed in. The decor is ethnic meets neo-hippie; the service foreigner-friendly; the food good.
Gia Payne and Dan Riney pull no punches in their guide "Tokyo Pub Crawler," a search for bars "more Japanese than Western, with a really good vibe."
"It's one of our favorite places," agree Americans Dan Riney and Gia Payne, who as authors of "Tokyo Pub Crawler: His & Her Bar Guide" have clear memories of when they took their first drink.
"I sipped beer at junior high school," admits Dan.
"I guess I was around 13 too," says Gia, laughing uproariously before she even starts to tell the story. "My sister began before me. I remember drinking beer in her bedroom. When our stepmother knocked on the door, I opened it, belched right in her face and her hair flew back. 'I think you need to go talk to your father,' she said."
Gia is still not really a beer person, though. Growing up in Nashville, Tenn., ("I'm musical at heart, if not in voice") Jack Daniel's was always the preferred tipple.
Not so Dan, who hails from Detroit. "I taught English at university in Saudi (Arabia) for a couple of years. Alcohol is forbidden, but you really have to go out of your way to get caught. Want an instant recipe for homemade wine? Add 1 kg of sugar and a tab of baker's yeast to 14 liters of grape juice and -- ideally -- wait two months before drinking. It was so much more difficult to make good beer."
Depressed, Dan wondered, where next? It was a piece on CNN News (something about fetal mice and fish heads preserved in liquid-filled vials on key rings selling in Tokyo) that brought him back. After teaching in Japan from 1994-96, he had left, saying never again! But two years in the Middle East cured that. Suddenly this was the only place to be. "Funny thing is, I still haven't seen one (of those key rings), nor met anyone who knows anything about them."
Gia came here after majoring in communications, plus Spanish and biology. "When I graduated there were no jobs, with a huge influx of Hispanic immigrants, and major changes required in local politics. I managed a law center, then when it became clear Al Gore was not going to win, replied to a Nova ad seeking teachers in Japan. I'd never had any desire to see Asia, but thought, 'Well, if I hate it, I can always come back.' "
Dan recalls how they met two years ago through mutual friends in Tokyo's Kabukicho and have been together ever since. "I'd wanted to do a bar guide for a long time. I'd written up some pubs in Ireland and got good feedback. But I really had to persuade Gia to do it with me."
They began by writing up the area they knew best: Ebisu. Just six or seven places. Still, Gia didn't really think it a viable idea. "Then we got wind of Caroline Pover, who I'd heard speak at a meeting of International Women in Communications. We asked her advice about the tone of the reviews and she loved it, thinking them honest and funny, very brazen and out there, not massaging the truth at all."
Dan had been thinking self-publishing, and Caroline was not looking to publish anyone else's work. When he said that they had considered asking her to do it for them, she suggested they do it in time for the World Cup. It was then they realized they couldn't do it by themselves so quickly. With Caroline acting as publisher, the book came out just after the tournament started -- still a monumental effort.
"We just decided to bite the bullet and research and write fast," Gia says.
Dan explains how they made it in time. "We decided to eliminate nightclubs, because basically they're all the same. And to review only pubs on the Yamanote Line, excepting Roppongi, Shimokitazawa and Yokohama. It also had to be practical, with maps and a rating system." Dan uses Pints Up/Pints Down symbols; Gia, a scale of one to four kisses.
"We were looking for places like this (Enjoy! House): more Japanese than Western, with a really good vibe that makes you feel comfortable. But we also hit on those that advertise heavily, because they get away with murder." Gas Panic in Roppongi, for example.
"It's full of guys out to get pissed. If you don't drink, you have to leave," Gia says, shivering at the memory. "Guys go there because they hear it's a good pickup joint, but there's rarely more than half a dozen girls. A lot of places in Roppongi are meat markets, and they suck."
"We're not about soft PR," adds Dan. "If we think customers are getting a poor deal, we say so. To be honest, I gave that particular bar a Pints Up, mainly because I regard it as a must-see Tokyo institution. Gia gave it a zero -- the only goose's egg in the book."
Gia accepts they may have made enemies, "but as a woman especially, I need good reliable information. If a bar is in a dangerous place in town, I don't need some guide telling me to go there. Tokyo is women-friendly, but not always."
If they have another fave bar it would be Sugar High in Shibuya. They say it's perfect for foreigners with minimal Japanese, yet you still feel you are in Japan. Dan thinks the owner a really nice guy. Gia acknowledges the place is small and dingy, but still she loves it, believing women have a more advanced view of such places.
Friday night you can drink as much as you can until 5 a.m. for 3,000 yen. The ambience is cool, relaxed and accepting. And there are always good conversations to be enjoyed at the bar -- with "salarymen," surfers and unemployed. A bar must have character, the authors agree.
There were squabbles during the writing of the book, but being very independent of one another, they could check one another's copy without taking it personally. In fact, they work together so well that they are contemplating extending the Tokyo guide, reviewing Osaka and branching out abroad, to Shanghai and beyond.
"I'm ready now," says Dan, who edits an in-house publication for an economics research institute and works as a newspaper copy editor. "I really enjoy the writing. And if it's crap, Gia tells me. I really respect her opinion."
"Tokyo Pub Crawler: His & Her Bar Guide," published by Alexandra Press 1,000 yen, available from English-language bookstores, The Pink Cow, Sin Den, Boudoir, The Hobgoblin (Akasaka and Roppongi), The Aldgate British Pub and via broads@gol.com (tel/fax 03 5410-3744) To contact the authors: Tokyopubcrawler@yahoo.com
The Japan Times: Aug. 24, 2002
(C) All rights reserved
By ANGELA JEFFS
We are sitting in Enjoy! House, a small pub cum club in Ebisu. There is hardly room to swing a cat, yet somehow a bar, tables and a minuscule dance floor are all squeezed in. The decor is ethnic meets neo-hippie; the service foreigner-friendly; the food good.
Gia Payne and Dan Riney pull no punches in their guide "Tokyo Pub Crawler," a search for bars "more Japanese than Western, with a really good vibe."
"It's one of our favorite places," agree Americans Dan Riney and Gia Payne, who as authors of "Tokyo Pub Crawler: His & Her Bar Guide" have clear memories of when they took their first drink.
"I sipped beer at junior high school," admits Dan.
"I guess I was around 13 too," says Gia, laughing uproariously before she even starts to tell the story. "My sister began before me. I remember drinking beer in her bedroom. When our stepmother knocked on the door, I opened it, belched right in her face and her hair flew back. 'I think you need to go talk to your father,' she said."
Gia is still not really a beer person, though. Growing up in Nashville, Tenn., ("I'm musical at heart, if not in voice") Jack Daniel's was always the preferred tipple.
Not so Dan, who hails from Detroit. "I taught English at university in Saudi (Arabia) for a couple of years. Alcohol is forbidden, but you really have to go out of your way to get caught. Want an instant recipe for homemade wine? Add 1 kg of sugar and a tab of baker's yeast to 14 liters of grape juice and -- ideally -- wait two months before drinking. It was so much more difficult to make good beer."
Depressed, Dan wondered, where next? It was a piece on CNN News (something about fetal mice and fish heads preserved in liquid-filled vials on key rings selling in Tokyo) that brought him back. After teaching in Japan from 1994-96, he had left, saying never again! But two years in the Middle East cured that. Suddenly this was the only place to be. "Funny thing is, I still haven't seen one (of those key rings), nor met anyone who knows anything about them."
Gia came here after majoring in communications, plus Spanish and biology. "When I graduated there were no jobs, with a huge influx of Hispanic immigrants, and major changes required in local politics. I managed a law center, then when it became clear Al Gore was not going to win, replied to a Nova ad seeking teachers in Japan. I'd never had any desire to see Asia, but thought, 'Well, if I hate it, I can always come back.' "
Dan recalls how they met two years ago through mutual friends in Tokyo's Kabukicho and have been together ever since. "I'd wanted to do a bar guide for a long time. I'd written up some pubs in Ireland and got good feedback. But I really had to persuade Gia to do it with me."
They began by writing up the area they knew best: Ebisu. Just six or seven places. Still, Gia didn't really think it a viable idea. "Then we got wind of Caroline Pover, who I'd heard speak at a meeting of International Women in Communications. We asked her advice about the tone of the reviews and she loved it, thinking them honest and funny, very brazen and out there, not massaging the truth at all."
Dan had been thinking self-publishing, and Caroline was not looking to publish anyone else's work. When he said that they had considered asking her to do it for them, she suggested they do it in time for the World Cup. It was then they realized they couldn't do it by themselves so quickly. With Caroline acting as publisher, the book came out just after the tournament started -- still a monumental effort.
"We just decided to bite the bullet and research and write fast," Gia says.
Dan explains how they made it in time. "We decided to eliminate nightclubs, because basically they're all the same. And to review only pubs on the Yamanote Line, excepting Roppongi, Shimokitazawa and Yokohama. It also had to be practical, with maps and a rating system." Dan uses Pints Up/Pints Down symbols; Gia, a scale of one to four kisses.
"We were looking for places like this (Enjoy! House): more Japanese than Western, with a really good vibe that makes you feel comfortable. But we also hit on those that advertise heavily, because they get away with murder." Gas Panic in Roppongi, for example.
"It's full of guys out to get pissed. If you don't drink, you have to leave," Gia says, shivering at the memory. "Guys go there because they hear it's a good pickup joint, but there's rarely more than half a dozen girls. A lot of places in Roppongi are meat markets, and they suck."
"We're not about soft PR," adds Dan. "If we think customers are getting a poor deal, we say so. To be honest, I gave that particular bar a Pints Up, mainly because I regard it as a must-see Tokyo institution. Gia gave it a zero -- the only goose's egg in the book."
Gia accepts they may have made enemies, "but as a woman especially, I need good reliable information. If a bar is in a dangerous place in town, I don't need some guide telling me to go there. Tokyo is women-friendly, but not always."
If they have another fave bar it would be Sugar High in Shibuya. They say it's perfect for foreigners with minimal Japanese, yet you still feel you are in Japan. Dan thinks the owner a really nice guy. Gia acknowledges the place is small and dingy, but still she loves it, believing women have a more advanced view of such places.
Friday night you can drink as much as you can until 5 a.m. for 3,000 yen. The ambience is cool, relaxed and accepting. And there are always good conversations to be enjoyed at the bar -- with "salarymen," surfers and unemployed. A bar must have character, the authors agree.
There were squabbles during the writing of the book, but being very independent of one another, they could check one another's copy without taking it personally. In fact, they work together so well that they are contemplating extending the Tokyo guide, reviewing Osaka and branching out abroad, to Shanghai and beyond.
"I'm ready now," says Dan, who edits an in-house publication for an economics research institute and works as a newspaper copy editor. "I really enjoy the writing. And if it's crap, Gia tells me. I really respect her opinion."
"Tokyo Pub Crawler: His & Her Bar Guide," published by Alexandra Press 1,000 yen, available from English-language bookstores, The Pink Cow, Sin Den, Boudoir, The Hobgoblin (Akasaka and Roppongi), The Aldgate British Pub and via broads@gol.com (tel/fax 03 5410-3744) To contact the authors: Tokyopubcrawler@yahoo.com
The Japan Times: Aug. 24, 2002
(C) All rights reserved