Does anyone know of any good guides to restaurants in Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka? Neither Michelin nor Zagats have anything, and I wonder about the guidebooks since we've not had much luck in following their culinary picks.

There are some very good guides...but all in Japanese. I haven't found the English guidebook recommendations to be very good either. If you by chance can read Japanese, then you can pick up restaurant guide in any bookshop. There are also monthly free guides outside convenience stores and other shops in a rack. If you can't read Japanese, ask your hotel to recommend some places for you, or wander around at lunch and dinner time and look for the crowded places. Taxi drivers often know good places as welll.

I meant to include that there are some local English language monthlies that have restaurant ads and a couple of reviews. My experience with them is that they tend to like the places that have more international food (Italian, Vietnamese, Spanish...) and seldom include places that you would find many local Japanese customers but many non-Japanese patrons...this isn't bad, just maybe not what you are looking for.

I'm pretty much counting on the "guides" on this forum for my dining recommendations so far for Japan. I also haven't found the greatest or most comprehensive reviews on hotels over there either (w/exception of some big American chains like Westins, etc.) Hard to get reviews of smaller hotels outsides the cities, except on the forums.

try the two below sites. the second one has all kinds of links. looks like a ton of info. hope some are useful.

tokyo q(do google)

http://metropolis.japantoday.com/tok...nt/feature.asp

At least for Tokyo try www.timeout.com. The printed guide they have for Tokyo is also great. These are more on the "hip" side and are more just a few selections than an exhaustive list. Also try www.chowhound.com forum, not a "guide" but some well-informed posters, similar to this site but for food. Enjoy planning your trip!

Bonjour,

another site for Tokyo: Tokyo food pages http://www.bento.com/tf-rest.html