I’m just another foreigner living in Japan. I live in South Tokyo just outside of the huge ex-pat community. I hope that what you find here in these pages will be useful, informative, entertaining, or some combination of the three. And, if you have anything you’d like to share, feel free. I, for one, enjoy learning new things and hope to learn something from everyone who has something they want to share here. So come on in, browse, and share.
Pizza
From as far back as I can remember, my favorite dish has always been pizza. I love it with pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, olives, and cheese so thick you can blow bubbles with it like chewing gum. And… I must say that there is no better kind of pizza on the planet than good old American Pizza, particularly New York Style. Yeah, yeah, Chicago… I hear ya. That stuff’s da bomb, too. I love living in Japan, though. And, an unfortunate part of living here is living without convenient access to good American pizza.
Don’t get me wrong, there is pizza here in Japan. Lots of it. It’s just that it’s complete shit. And it’s insanely expensive. A fucking crime, to be clear. You know the saying ‘There’s no such thing as bad pizza’? Well, whoever coined that phrase has never had a shrimp-mayonnaise special - a very popular type here. If I’m hosting a poker night with my friends, and one or two of them are Japanese, and we decide to order pizza, you can bet that tempers flare when our J-friends request fried squid and crab-mayo salad as toppings. But, I guess you can’t blame ‘em. They grew up eating that kind of turd-like concoction.
Anyway, you really can’t get great American pizza here in J-land. You know, like the kind you can get in some mom ‘n pop pizzeria in any major city in the States? But, you can get stuff that’ll mostly satisfy your cravings. Dominos and Pizza Hut are here in Tokyo, and they deliver. But the best pizza deal is at Costco. Yes, you read me right… Costco. The membership store from the States. At Costco here you can get a 45cm combo pizza (yes, an American-style pizza) for about ￥1,600 in their in-store cafeteria. And, it’s a helluva lot better than Dominos or Pizza Hut.
If you’re fresh off the plane and haven’t been in Japan too long, there’s no real reason for you to hit up Costco anytime soon, but after you’ve been here a fair bit, you’ll be loving what Costco has to offer.
Hi,
Japan has NY pizza, it’s on enoshima, 2-5-17 Enoshima at the top of the mountain on the cave road. It’s the real thing!! It opened Golden week.
That’s good to hear.
Or…. Is that your pizza shop, Alex? I mean, do you have a photographic memory, and that’s why you rattled off the address? Haha.
Anyway, thanks for the info, Alex. If I make it to Enoshima this summer, I’ll give it a try.
Cheers!
Alex is my name and NY pizza is my game. I have a pornographic memory. I just thought you might like to know that NY pizza exists here, without sounding too cheesy!!
Ok, alex.
I’ll definitely hit your place up if I’m on Enoshima.