Anthony Bourdain Once Said He Could Eat In This City Forever (It's Not In The US)

When it came to killer food recommendations, there was no one more dependable than the late Anthony Bourdain. That's why our ears perked up when Bourdain said in the field notes for his popular travel show "Parts Unknown" that if he had to choose one city to eat in for the rest of his life, it would be Tokyo.

Though he had made the voyage to Tokyo nine times throughout his career, he described the city as "deliciously unknowable." It was that sense of mystery that kept him coming back for more. During Season 2, Episode 7 of Parts Unknown, he experienced both ends of the spectrum of the Tokyo social scene — from raucous dance clubs to high end martini bars to death metal shows. There were street meats, convenience store snacks he craved when he wasn't in town, and renowned Omakase style eateries like Sushi Yasuda, owned by his dear friend and sushi mentor, Naomichi Yasuda (certainly not the kind of place you would put wasabi in your soy sauce.) Bourdain told Business Insider in 2016 that though the vast array of options made it hard to choose, his top Japanese dishes included uni, soba noodles, and yakitori (marinated chicken skewers grilled over a charcoal fire). 

Anthony Bourdain admired the precision of world class Tokyo-based sushi chefs like Naomichi Yashuda and Jiro Ono, who's 10 seat sushi bar, Sukiyabashi Jiro, left him speechless — and where he later said he wished to have his last meal. (He was so inspired by Ono and the city that he co-wrote a graphic novel about the chef, called "Get Jiro!") Japanese food and the calculated mentality that comes with it, juxtaposed against the darkness of Tokyo's more underground scenes (culinary and otherwise), inspired and captivated Bourdain. There was just so much to see, do, and taste.

As he joined Yashuda at his favorite hole-in-the-wall (which he referred to as a "hipster tempura" joint), Bourdain mused to his friend about the sheer number of eateries in the city: "I could do five years of shows on one building." However, in his many televised visits to Tokyo, Bourdain often relied on the advice of friends in the know about where to eat. Bourdain and food journalist Shinji Nohara sparked each others careers back in the early 2000s after Nohara advised the chef on the best eateries in Tokyo. That was during his first trip to the city he would soon fall in love with — which just happened to be filmed for the first episode of Bourdain's first travel show "A Cook's Tour."