Still reeling from the news that the Guide Michelin had awarded no less than 150 stars to restaurants in Tokyo, I determine to get on a plane and go there. But I overshoot Pearson and land up instead in Mississauga - to be precise at Kaiseki Yuzen Hashimoto. the next best thing to actually being on the Ginza.

I have enlisted as my guide the Shogun, an old Japan hand who has mastered the intricate diplomacy of interpreting East to West. He picks me up in his legacy Toyota which he recently had restored because how can something old and wonderful be wantonly abandoned? This is the true spirit of the conservative, as buoyant as the sporty old peer in The Boy Friend who claimed “A ruin can be charmin’”    more »