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Lunar New Year was not so long ago. Although Japan doesn’t technically celebrate it with all the pomp like their other Asian neighbors, I just so happened to get this seasonally appropriate teacup for my coffee at Dog Hill Café recently. A rabbit cup for a rabbit girl in a rabbit year… at a dog café. Too many animals in one go!

Dog Hill Café
2303-1 Konegoto-go, Higashi Sonogi-cho
Higashi Sonogi-gun, Nagasaki Prefecture
Japan 

Butter cookies are safe bets as gifts: honestly, how can anything with butter go wrong? But if you want top bang for your buck, Yokumoku Cookies make for some quality souvenirs from Tokyo: crisp, light and airy—but with the unmistakable rich butteriness. Their most iconic nibbles include these cigar cookies, which come in a variety of flavors. I couldn’t help but indulge in a box of petit cigare cookies on my way home from Tokyo a few weeks ago. For who, you ask? Who do you think?

Yokumoku
[Various locations]
Tokyo Haneda Airport 

My “Vietnamese sandwich” (ベトナムサンド on the menu) at Green Time Café OG in Fukuoka. The only thing Vietnamese about it might have been the slight dab of paté inside. Sigh. I miss real banh mi!

Green Time Café OG
Southside Terace 1F
1-1-38 Daimyo, Chuo Ward
Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture 

I don’t worship at the altar of ramen like some others, but Always Men-ya (“genuine tonkotsu ramen in Nagasaki”) may convert me just yet.

This is their house special, the Always Ramen: five generous hunks of fatty char siu,  julienned carrots, fistfuls of bean sprouts and cabbage, chewy cloud ear mushrooms, and a dollop of karamiso to finish. (Buried underneath all this is the crowning achievement in my opinion: the most perfect soft-boiled egg.) The tonkotsu broth, accented by a garlicky oil with a green onion base, is rich and full of flavor, not overly heavy or greasy. Add it with a side of their juicy kurobuta gyoza — pan-fried Berkshire pork potstickers — and you’re good to go.

I reserve my ramen splurges for taking care of hunger after heavy boozing sessions, but considering I’ve been here more than once in broad daylight, instead of 3 AM, without an ounce of beer in my system has got to be saying something about how much I love their ramen, don’t you think? That’s a winning endorsement from a non-ramen fan, I’d think…

Always Men-ya
5-22 Yorozuya-machi
Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture
〒850-0852 Japan