Tohoku Deep Dive: Exploring Yamadera and Drinking with Friendly Locals!

For more than six decades, Sanyuken Fukasawa Branch in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward has served generations of customers with familiar Chinese dishes, as its 72-year-old second-generation owner and his wife continue to run the 14-seat neighborhood restaurant largely by themselves.

Authorities are warning people not to rely on artificial intelligence, guidebooks or internet searches to decide whether wild mushrooms are safe to eat after food poisoning cases involving toxic species, including one in which AI mistakenly identified a poisonous mushroom as edible.

Tokyo's Fuchu Prison is adapting its meals and living arrangements to a growing foreign inmate population, with about one in four prisoners coming from overseas and staff balancing religious, cultural and dietary needs against tight budgets and the demands of running one of Japan's largest prisons.

The cost of making a serving of curry rice at home in Japan fell below 350 yen in July for the first time in 11 months, helped by declining rice prices, according to Teikoku Databank.

Grape-picking season has reached its peak at tourist farms in Kashiwara, Osaka Prefecture, where hot weather from spring through summer has produced particularly sweet, richly flavored fruit this year, although prolonged rain has reduced visitor numbers and could shorten the season.

The autumn red snow crab season has opened on the Sea of Japan coast, with the first auction at Kasumi Fishing Port in Kami, Hyogo Prefecture, recording a top price of 300,000 yen for a single crab on September 4.

Japan's Environment Ministry will conduct its first survey of animal cafes, where customers can interact with animals including exotic species, as concerns grow over infection risks, injuries and the welfare burden placed on animals.

Japan byFood and Shizuka are back with Worth The Trip the series where we will discover food spots in Japan that are actually worth traveling for! This time we are going to award-winning eats around Tokyo under one rule – we can only eat for $10 or around ¥1,600 yen.