Smith Street Books

It's the chicken skin yakitori you eat at 2am in a bar the size of a cupboard. It's the pork curry you devour after having to line up for 45 minutes with a bunch of excited teenagers. It's the yuzu ramen you slurp after ordering it from a vending machine. It's the tonkatsu you buy in a vast shopping-center basement. And it's the Oden that's served to you by a laid-back surfer from Okinawa. Tokyo is an explo...

The word mezze stems from the Arabic term `tamazzaza' - a single word that broadly embraces the idea of enjoying small portions of food and taking the time to indulge one's tastebuds, eyes and nose by exposing them to a wide range of aromas and flavours. A complete mezze table is formed when many of these warm and cold dishes are presented together, as a meal in itself. The mezzanic culture originated in th...