In Japanese

I don't use very often Japanese food sites for several reasons, one being the incomprehensible love the Japanese have for busy design and clashing colors. My main objection is the fact that usually they are little more than collections of advertisements, so that the abundance of signal becomes noise.

In any case, two of the biggest sites are the following: Restaurant Guide Japan has a Tokyo section. I frankly find it almost useless, filled as it is with crap, but in any case there is the link.

The other day I saw in Shinjuku an ad for a site in Japanese, Gourmet Navigator, dedicated to restaurants in Tokyo. I checked it, and found it useful. Of course, since it is a commercial operation, one must take the reviews with a generous grain of salt, but it is fairly complete and rich with information. It's free, so, if you can read Japanese or your sweetheart does, check it out.

In English

FOOD SEARCH ENGINES

The site of the University of Leiden in Holland has an interminable list of specialized Search Engines. The following is just the Food Section.

Food and beverage, luxuries, delicacies, recipes

  • "There's an awful lot of coffee in Brazil: Coffee information on the Web" by Pablo Dubois (in Free Pint No. 23)
  • Mimi's Food Finder (Search for Food)
  • Menu Search (search for recipes, appetizers, breads, cookies, soups, drinks)
  • The Culinary Connection (search 10 000s of recipes)
  • Recipe Dude Search Engine
  • Food: Recipe Finder
  • www.beersite.com - The search engine for the beer and brewing industry
  • The Real Beer Page
  • VinoSearch
  • GrapeSeek, The First Search Engine For Grapes and Wine
  • Eno.WorldWine Suchseite
  • Artisans on Web Search Engine (especially good for wine reviews)
  • FoodBot - Search Engine for Food and the Food Service Industry
  • The Espresso Index
  • Coffeexpress.com - Got Latte?
  • CoffeeHopper - Roasters, Java Beans, Coffee directory
  • CheeseNet: Search CheeseNet
  • SOAR: Searchable Online Archive of Recipes
  • Search the Kitchen Link
  • www.cigarsearch.com - THE web search for cigar aficionado's
  • The Chocolate Lovers' Page - Your Web Guide to Chocolate
  • GoRecipes - Food & Cooking Search

     

    Then there is the Tokyo Food Page. Over the years, it has grown enormously and offers a stupendous amount of information. The search engine is a particularly good tool and I use it often.
    Robb Satterwhite doesn't need a link from me, since his site is way more famous than mine, and deservedly so, but I will give it to him anyway.

    My friend Ken Straiton is a professional photographer and a wine connoisseur. Since he likes good food as much as I do, among his pictures at www.kenstraiton.com you will find images of the most delicious-looking dishes you've ever seen. Take a look.

    Recipes on the Net

    The Internet is truly the Library of Babel, but until recently I had never thought of looking for recipes on it. Bad move, as it turned out, because it's crawling with good sites. I am now using it regularly for my cooking.

    There are some problems, of course. The most obvious is that one has to rely mostly on sites in English, although it's clear that, if you want to find out about Bouillabaisse, you should ask the French. This can't be helped, and it's truly a pity, but you can still find a great deal. By the way, different search engines give very different results, so, if you cannot find something with one, try another.

    For French cuisine, look for example at Beyond, but I haven't been able to find much else. Mostly broken links.

    ThaiCuisine.com claims to offer one thousand different recipes. Never found them. It does have a very good Links page.

    Italian recipes are all over. Just type the name of the dish you want, and the recipe will pop up in no time at all. You can otherwise consult SOAR (Searchable Online Archive of Recipes), very useful also for a wide range of cuisines and for recipes as different as brownies and mutton biryani. If you can read Italian, use Virgilio, a good Italian search engine.

    Stephanie da Silva has collected an amazing array of weird recipes. She even has some Tibetan ones. Also useful is her explanation of where they came from.

    If what you want is Indian food, an Indian fellow called Dinesh has created a very interesting site with many links to huge recipe lists. The problem with the ingredients is often great. For example, what on earth is Asafoetida? It doesn't even sound friendly.

    Still, it's well worth not a visit, but a hundred to a lover of Indian food.

    Turkish food recipes can be found at Turkish Cuisine.

    The best strategy if you know the dish you want remains inputting its name directly in the search engine.

  • Other links
  • The guys at Design Festa want to exchange links with me, and I am more than happy to oblige. I will let them introduce themselves.

  • "Hello from Design Festa Office!
    We organize an international art event called Design Festa and a gallery, Design Festa Gallery.
    We would like to have a link exchange with your website. The following is our web-address and text.
    http://www.designfesta.com

    Design Festa is a freestyle International Art Event open to all artists from all over the world, to exhibit their creative talent. There is also an art gallery in Harajuku, Tokyo."

    - Me and James Gibbs have decided to exchange links. James has organized two sites, both about Tokyo, and both rich of information. I will let him describe what they are.
    Guide to Jobs in Japan is a "Comprehensive Online Guide to Live and Work in Japan." Visitors can read the Guide to Jobs in Japan online (we also have a selection of online jobs listings for Japan).

    The Tokyo International Club is an online "Guide to Networking and Socializing in Japan" with free personals, classifieds and club and party information.
    Two links from Cornell University
    The first if from FALCON, Cornell's University South Asia Program. I will let them introduce themselves.
    "Southeast Asia Program
    Introduction to Our Program
    In response to the continuing need for an accelerated program enabling graduate and undergraduate students and other interested persons to gain a working proficiency in Chinese, Japanese, and Indonesian, Cornell University offers FALCON, its special intensive language program. FALCON students spend six hours a day, five days a week, for periods up to a full year studying language only, and thus are able to complete as much as 1,200 hours of supervised classroom and laboratory work in one year. The program, which was established in 1972, is designed by, and is under the daily supervision of, faculty members of the Department of Modern Languages. Practice sections are restricted in size and are conducted by native speakers. One lecture daily is conducted in English to provide necessary analysis and explanation. Students have access to Cornell University's experienced faculty and state-of-the-art audio/visual equipment, and receive Cornell credit for their work    ."
    The second request comes from Tom Mason, who is also at Cornell and who is organizing a site called Tom's Japan Web Guide, which should become a collection of sites useful to people interested in Japan. The site isn't open yet, and Tom needs help. If you know of any Japan-related site you like, let him know.