meemalee

It's time for Hyper Japan 2012 - the UK's biggest celebration of J-Culture from Friday till Sunday at Earl's Court, London. Kakkoii is the Japanese word for "cool", and it's fair to say that the line-up of food, events, entertainment, books and other goods on sale veers towards the kakkoii, and also the more familiar kawaii (meaning "cute"). The traditional side of Japan isn't neglected though, with stands of pottery, calligraphy, artwork and origami taking part. Exhibitors I'll be taking a look at include Nintendo (who'll have exclusive 3DS downloadable content), Manga Entertainment, CyberCandy, Namco, Artbox and my beloved Doki Tableware . Food and groceries will be available from the likes of the Japan Centre, Natural Natural, Minamato Kitchoan, So restaurant and Bento Ramen. The 2012 Sake Awards and Sushi Awards will also be taking place at Hyper Japan. For those Harajuku wannabes amongst you, there'll be showcases of the lates...

I'm one of those lucky souls who commutes into town from the 'burbs, and the stop that my husband (a fellow commuter) and I usually come into is London Charing Cross. The way into work is generally fine (apart from never getting a seat, and being crushed into strangers' armpits), but on the way back, invariably something will go wrong to delay our journey home - leaves on the line, signalling problems and one time, memorably, a cloth factory in New Cross went up in smoke. Whilst we often resign ourselves to waiting, and scrunching our faces up angrily at the departures board, more often than not, we will decide that this is God's way of telling us to go away and have dinner and simply try again later. Upstairs at Hazuki Our usual haunt is Hazuki , a little two-storey Japanese restaurant hidden away on Chandos Place, past Oscar Wilde and just up from the station, and we always head straight upstairs. An old faithful, when snow is the cause of disruption, Hazuki will war...

Maguro (tuna) carpaccio A good man is hard to find. Good sushi is even harder. At least that seems the case in this fair land of Albion. Supermarket and takeaway interpretations are the rankest imagineable ( just ask Richard Vines and Jun Tanaka ) and restaurant versions are often no better. But Japan invented sushi, so you'd expect that their stuff would knock the socks of anything we'd come up with. Surprisingly though, the sushi I had for breakfast at Tsukiji market , the sushi world's El Dorado , was a bit of a let-down and also left me feeling a tad ropey. In the end, the best sushi I've ever had was at a tiny kaiten-zushi bar in Ueno, Tokyo. I've no idea what it was called, but as every plate cost 126 yen, to me it's the 126 Yen Sushi Bar ( edited on July 2014: apparently it's called Oedo and it's now 130 Yen! ). The first time we ate there the exchange rate was 220 yen to the pound, meaning each plate cost a measly 57p, but even with the ec...