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want to meet at fmd_good Local House
want to meet at fmd_good City Market
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Shinjuku's Hidden Sound?
If you're coming out of Belle Salle, walk north up Meiji-dori a few minutes to the Shinjuku 2-chome area. That's the historic gay district and it has a genuinely mixed crowd of locals and regulars, plus tons of small bars in the low-rise buildings. For coffee before your sessions, Kissa Sanbonkado near Shinjuku Gyoen is a classic kissaten that's been there since the 1970s; the siphon coffee is worth the wait and it's mostly Japanese customers. Weekday afternoons are calm, evenings get lively once the offices let out.
Skip the ground floor stuff and go underground at Shinjuku-sanchome station itself, the little food hall down there (Depachika-adjacent, not the fancy Isetan one) has cheap standing soba and a couple of old coffee counters where salarymen decompress. vibe is zero-tourist, kinda fluorescent and loud though so dont expect cozy. Also check the tiny bars on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the buildings right by the Yasukuni-dori crossing, you gotta just pick a door and go up, half of em have no sign at all
honestly the stretch between Belle Salle and Shinjuku-sanchome station is underrated for this. skip the big chains and duck into the basement floors of the buildings along Shinjuku-dori, there are tiny kissaten and curry places down there that office workers use at lunch, mostly Japanese menus and no English signage. for after your sessions, the lanes behind Isetan toward Hanazono Shrine have a few standing bars that stay local until maybe 8pm, then it shifts. i'd pick that over Golden Gai if you actually want to talk to people instead of posing for photos.
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Where can I find crispy, pan-fried bacon similar to a certain international style?
if u have a costco membership the kirkland thick cut is the move, 4 packs of 500g for around 2500 yen and it crisps up proper in a cold pan. for smaller runs, precce in azabudai hills & the basement at isetan shinjuku both carry imported US & danish brands in the chilled case, just read the label for "thick cut" or "smoked" and not "loin". also worth knowing japanese bacon is often wet-cured so pat it dry before frying or it steams instead of crisping
kaldi coffee farm is hit or miss but their smoked bacon from denmark shows up pretty regular, the 200g pack runs about 600 yen. what actually works better for me is asking the butcher counter at peacock or life to slice the block bacon thick, like 5mm, they do it for free and it crisps way better than the pre-packed stuff. also fwiw cheap bacon crisps faster, the fatty supermarket kind at 300 yen a pack works fine if u cook it from cold in a dry pan and pour off the fat as it renders.
tbh the gyomu super store brand bacon is surprisingly decent for crisping up, its not thick cut but if you cook it low and slow it gets pretty crunchy. the key is the dry cure vs wet cure thing, wet cure steams. also check hanamasa if you have one nearby, they sell big packs of american style bacon thats actually smoked and firm.