If you don't read the byline (Momofuku's David Chang), you'd be excused for thinking it's written by a doofus who's not really worried about actually constructing an argument as opposed to lining up opinions.<p>I like Chang, but I can't take his piece seriously with a sentence like this:<p>> I genuinely don’t give a fuck about any other place on the planet. I just want to go to Tokyo to eat. Look at the other food cities in the world, such as Paris. Can’t live there, because I don’t want to eat only French food. It’s great for a week and then you know what I want? Anything but French food.<p>I believe he occasionally frequents hip modern French restaurants in Paris, many of which are essentially focused on taking a modern twist on classical "haute cuisine" and making it less pretentious and even more adventurous. So it's a little rich to see him go on about Tokyo when after going to his favorite Ramen joints there a few years ago, I still couldn't find one that could touch my experiences at Kotteri Ramen Naritake in Paris — a decidedly Japanese export run the way a Ramen joint is supposed to run and yet the best Ramen I've ever had anywhere in the world.<p>Tokyo is an amazing place to eat. No argument about that. But putting down other culinary destinations just because you easily get bored of the main food style there is a little lazy. I've had amazing food in Tokyo without trying to play it safe. Yet, I could flip his "argument" about French food in Paris and say that when you get bored of Japanese food (or Japanese reinventions of other foods), then maybe Tokyo would get old for you.<p>What's far more likely is that he (Chang) has an intense emotional attachment to Tokyo's food scene and that it gives him perpetual pleasure. And that's great, for him. For anyone curious of his claims, just watch Mind of a Chef's Japan episode with David Chang, it's a marvel: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cJm1zny0Bw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cJm1zny0Bw</a><p>PS: Yes, I'm French, from Paris, and just as fucking biased as he is.
I enjoy this person's enthusiasm, but I am skeptical of his method and conclusions. If you have to fly seafood around the world it's not the best seafood any more. Statements like "There's no Southeast Asian food that I can find ... but if it exists it's probably really good" raise their doubts. Using the F word for emphasis in every sentence raises doubts.<p>Some things I can definitely agree with. Being in Italy drives me crazy too. I think you could make a fortune opening a decent Chinese (or really decent any non-Italian cuisine) restaurant in Rome. Because everything built around pasta in every single restaurant really gets old.
I just saw personal opinions, misogynist remarks (reference to a "dumb blonde who's just beautiful", because "dumb blondes" are not human, you see), condescending remarks, very limited world view, more personal opinions. Yes, Tokyo is the world's best food city…for the author.<p>I don't feel like looking up who the author is or what the author's prior reputation and accomplishments are (beyond what's mentioned in plain text in the comments here). Those cannot excuse the writing. The words in the article tell a lot.
"Why Tokyo Is the World’s Best Food City"? Because the author uses the word "fucking" at least once per paragraph. That is why. So off I go to Tokyo, visibly impressed.
This is obviously very cras and opinionated, but there are 2 key points buried in there - the Japanese are distinguished by their willingness to appropriate good things from around the world. This is a huge difference, I find, compared to European countries, particularly France. They also, as he says, care a lot about what they do, and are devoted to food. This has it's downsides, eg try buying a cheap ugly apple in Tokyo, you will fail, the producer threw it away long before it could have ever reached the store.<p>I think Japan also gets a bit of a leg up over other places because if you have lived elsewhere all your life then you will find food in Japan incredibly novel and fascinating in provenance, packaging, preparation and presentation. When I first arrived I found even just the convenience stores mind boggling in the variety of stuff I had never seen before. The actual food halls are a whole other level from there. It is difficult to have the same experience if you have lived in the West and go to London/Rome/Paris for the first time.
I am right and you're wrong if you disagree.<p>I don't like to eat paella, so it doesn't matter.<p>Mexican food doesn't matter<p>Hard to make a convincing argument that way.
It is if you don't have any dietary restrictions. I'm a Vegetarian and have been living in Tokyo for just over a year now. Coming from New Zealand which is vegetarian friendly (you're guaranteed to find vege options on any menu) I have found this aspect of Japanese living frustrating. I'm not suggesting they need to change but it is something to be aware of. Vegetarianism is a foreign concept to many Japanese and you will encounter situations where rogue meat will end up in your food much less fish. It's not impossible though (provided you can ignore that everything is cooked in meat fat) but I would say that if there are any vegans here they'd be SOL.
Best Food city ? I'm writing from Tokyo right now (I go there several times a month) and while you certainly have a very good palette of choice, within Japan it's one of the most expensive places to eat, and the big problem that I have is that it's constantly crowded, especially where the food is a bit better than average. And the lack of space in general does not match with a super enjoyable experience. I'd prefer eating in Kansai any day, where you can actually relax and enjoy the food (cheaper and of very good quality too) instead of caring about the noise and the crowd.
I read this article with a pinch of salt. The author is biased towards Japanese, French and Italian cuisines. He clearly notes the lack of South Asian and Spanish cuisine restaurants (what about Mexican? Filipino?) in Tokyo. How can a city have the best food in the world, if it's not even a fair representation of the world? That's like saying Japanese, Italian and French cuisines are the best in the world.
The best food city has to be the one with the most diversity of foods. If you want the best food of a certain cuisine, of course it would be hard to beat the cuisine's homeland. But some cities are better than others in providing high-quality (but maybe not the absolute best) examples of international cuisines.<p>Another factor is that, to me, the "best food city" is one that has excellent cheap food. This is also a factor proportional to the city's diversity. Some cities may have amazing high-end restaurants, but I'm not going to eat at a nice sit-down restaurant all the time (maybe even rarely). A city may have many Michelin stars, but when's the last time you considered a Michelin place for lunch? How many times would you go to one, maybe once a year, or less?<p>Because of this, I would rate many American coastal cities as some of the best places for food because of the diversity.
I usually come to HN to read articles that are the opposite of this one. I don't care who wrote this, I don't care who David Chang is, I come to HN to find facts, data, and rationality. I like the word fucking to emphasize something but I fucking hate reductio ad fuckingum arguments.
IMHO - the one place where you get the best food in a 24 hour area from around the world, including affordable Michelin star food is Singapore.<p>Between the kopitiams (24 hr coffee shops), 4$ michelin star food [1] and the Timbre gastropark... you really can eat amazing food all in a day.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/aug/04/michelin-star-for-singapore-noodle-stall-where-lunch-is-half-the-price-of-a-big-mac" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/aug/04/micheli...</a>
[Well-known chef or not, Chang could cut out that excessive cussing, and <i>utterly</i> tasteless comments about women.]<p>I don't get the impression the author includes vegetarian options. Or are we to be laughed off the room, because "it's a costal city"? But hey, he uses the all-encompassing "Best Food City".<p><data-sample-one>
Last year, when in Tokyo (was put up near Shinagawa station), after a long day of work, I simply wanted a good veggie / vegan meal. Took me 2 hours of ambling around (okay, some of it aimless; didn't take my phone with me) to find a place with one veggie option. I asked another vegetation colleague who visits Tokyo far more frequently, and he did kind of confirm: "yeah, it's slightly harder to find veggie / vegan options".<p>A month before that, was on the other side of Pacific (Seattle), and I found great many options, including delicious Japanese veggie food.
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I am not sure about the gourmet scenes in tokyo (I am a poor grad student), but in terms of groceries, they are the best. You can get extremely good quality beef from shops like daiei.<p>the most unusual stuff I have seen was in 7/11, I don't know how they cook such good quality oden, and even they keep very good quality sandwiches, weird, because to eat something quick and cheap people generally don't mind the quality so much, and the bathrooms are squeaky clean (the public hygiene sense in the us is still primitive if you compare with japan's). 7/11s also keep good onigiris, kara-ages.<p>tokyo street foods are also amazing, but a dinner at a mediocre restaurant will rip off your pocket.
FYI, for all the jaded readers/commenters (everyone?) I think this is just a an op-ed piece in the vein of "Why X Is Better Than Y" That Lucky Peach has been doing.<p><a href="http://luckypeach.com/why-new-york-is-better-than-san-francisco/" rel="nofollow">http://luckypeach.com/why-new-york-is-better-than-san-franci...</a><p><a href="http://luckypeach.com/why-san-francisco-is-better-than-new-york/" rel="nofollow">http://luckypeach.com/why-san-francisco-is-better-than-new-y...</a>
I own quite a few copies of the Lucky Peach but I find myself not able to make the majority of recipes because their recipes focus on strong overpowering ingredients.<p>To me this is sad way of cooking, where a recipe is dominated by onions, or garlic or beats. Its poor man's ketchup cooking.<p>Is Tokyo the mecca of food? I don't know now but its narrow minded to say one city trumps them all.
Tokyo does have really great food, but let's not delude ourselves here, there are entire categories of cuisine that you simply won't find properly done in Japan. For starters, anything spicy (Thai, Indian, Mexican) tends to be severely lacking.
starts off quite well, but then the article starts to disagree with itself and argues "well, the stuff we don't have I don't care about anyways". If you think this argument is reasonable then it actually applies to everything, everywhere. If I only care about what's great to eat in vietnam then it's the best place in the world that has everything in awesome, because the other stuff is not interesting to me anyways.
> But you know what I don’t ever really eat? Spanish food. I don’t have to eat paella ever again. Spain’s a country I like to visit, but we’re talking about foods that I generally eat or I want to eat on a day-to-day basis.<p>If he thinks paella is Spain's main food he doesn't know anything