On November 22, the much-talked-about Michelin Guide Tokyo went on sale. With a combination of French connections and something of gastronomical interest, you can never go wrong in Japan. Sure enough, for days leading up to and after its release, the Japanese media flocked to cover the event and the Guide itself, the most recognized restaurant and hotel guide book published by French tire manufacturer Michelin. Of course, the Guide was a popular topic among Japanese bloggers last week.

Photo by Flickr user pict_u_re CC-BY-NC-SA

Blogger gen comments:

I have only thumbed through a friend's copy of the recently released (and now sold out) Michelin Guide Tokyo. I have only been to a handful of the restaurants in the guide (maybe 5-7 of the 1 stars.) It is staggering to think that while Paris and New York City have roughly 20,000 restaurants, the greater Tokyo area has over 160,000 restaurants.

There's a longer discussion about what really deserves stars and why it took a non-Japanese company to create the most-recognizable guide to food in Tokyo, and how many of the best restaurants are invite-only and thus are not reviewed, but that's for another day.

The full list of Michelin Guide Tokyo restaurants are on the Michelin website (name only- buy the guidebook for the reviews once they reprint it.)

On the other hand, the guide has also stirred up some controversy, with critics voicing concerns about evaluating traditional Japanese cuisine based on Western taste and standards. As ko-ji points out, the guide only covers certain parts of Tokyo and its evaluation criteria were never made clear.

各方面でいろいろと書かれているようですがこの
ガイドを読む限りでは東京23区のうちのたった9区で
しかも老舗店の多い台東区、中野区あたりが全くなく
外国人の判断基準を知りたいように思いました。

Photo by Flickr user eprouveze CC-BY-NC-SA

Some bloggers were quite sarcastic about the whole event. This blogger comments:

何で、あんなに大騒ぎしてるんだろう。
はっきりいって踊らされすぎだと思う。

フランス人には日本料理の評価なんてできないと思う。
まぁ東京にあるフランス料理店の判断基準にはなるかもね。

Many bloggers seem to be turned off by the “snobbishness” of the Guide and express their disappointment about how Japanese food culture is represented. saturday_interlude echoes these voices:

高級な料亭や、豪華なフランス料理店じゃなくて、
路地裏にでもあるような、小さなお店でも
とっても美味しい料理と、女将さんの優しい微笑で、
三ツ星経験を楽しめるかもしれませんよ。