Hi, I’m Pigchi
Think of me as that friend in Tokyo you haven’t met yet — the one who fires off a photo of something she just ate with a single line: you have to come try this.
Your next trip, through the back door.
I live in Tokyo. I’m a little too obsessed with food, and with the parts of Japan most travel guides skip right over. And I write these — honestly, they feel like letters to me — for one specific person: you. The traveler who’s already done Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, maybe Hokkaido, and is quietly wondering okay… but where do the good ones go next?
Not “top 10 things to do.” Not the greatest-hits loop you’ve already walked. I’m interested in Japan’s #1 foods, and the towns that grow them — the strawberry town that’s quietly been number one for thirty years, the valley the grapes actually come from, the tea town at the bottom of Kyushu that just out-grew Shizuoka. You fell for something here once — a strawberry, a cup of tea, a peach that ruined all other peaches. My job is to take you to its source.
Trust is really the only
thing I have to offer you.
I go. I eat.
The places I send you to are places I’ve stood in, ordered at, been quietly wrecked by. My work keeps me closer to Japan’s regions than most people writing about them in English — so this isn’t a reshuffle of the same ten blogs. It’s the local, slightly-too-picky friend’s version.
When I say “#1,” I mean it.
Number one by production, by a specific measure, with the source — never a vague “famous for.” When a town’s claim leans on a technicality, I’ll tell you. When something’s a bit of a trek, or the wine hasn’t won me over yet, I’ll tell you that too.
No hype, no obligation.
No “so cheap!” No recommending things I don’t love. I’d rather lose the booking than send you toward something I don’t believe in. That’s the whole deal — and every recommendation comes with a why.
Out here, it’s a little inconvenient — and that’s the point.
Fair warning, friend: in a lot of these towns the signs are mostly Japanese, the buses run when they feel like it, and hardly anyone’s going to switch to English for you. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But that little bit of friction is exactly what keeps these places yours — not the tour-bus crowd’s. Come a touch prepared, and real local Japan opens right up.
So you always know exactly
what you’re reading.
- I only recommend what I’d send an actual friend to.
- I lead with value, never price.
- Every recommendation comes with a why.
- Every “#1” comes with a real, checkable source.
- I stay honest about the limits — access, season, risk, the bottle I haven’t fallen for yet.
Tokyo is my home, and I love it. But the Japan I most want to show you is an hour or three away — a greenhouse in January, a vineyard in September, a tea field in May. Start with any story. When one of these towns ruins you a little, I hope you’ll think of me.
Want a postcard now and then?
I’m not going to ask you to “subscribe.” But if you’d like, I send the occasional postcard from wherever I happen to be in Japan — a photo, a few lines, no sales pitch attached.
Postcards from Pigchi →