Yuki Matsuda

Tokyo

It's a venue that has one of the best sound systems.

They are open until 3 am and they have the best late night food to take my mind off.

They always have really cool exhibitions and events.

I just love their authentic and very spicy Chinese dishes. Sometimes after doing a gig you just wanna eat spicy food with your mates.

Owned by one of my friends who has a very good taste in music.

It's a second hand book store. They have many great art books.

Tokyo with Yuki Matsuda

Sama Beydoun 

Beirut

Best hidden spot for a good coffee in the heart of the city. You can grab coffee during the day and catch some live music at night. Ask for Youssef, he'll tell you all about the space or he’ll hit you up with some special recommendations. My favorites are the ginger lemon honey tea or the iced doppio, that you can ask the waiter for, it’s off the menu.

Exquisite brunch or sandwiches with beautiful sunlight if you’re sitting outside. I often pass by for coffee too. If it gets crowded it extends onto the facing staircases, for a drink literally on the streets on Beirut. Ask for Antoine, he’s the sweetest and the funniest, he’s usually there until the afternoon, probably singing along to the music spreading his joie-de-vivre.

For film photographers and printmaking lovers, I develop my films at the Beirut printmaking studio, hidden in an alley in Gemmayzeh. Tarek opened this space to gather artists, photographers and creatives, where they can take different printmaking, developing and darkroom classes. Ask him about the names of the cats. You’re in for a ride.

If you’re looking for a special gift or a souvenir, Plan Bey is the ideal stop. Posters, books, prints and many projects that carry so much of Beirut’s visual identity and spirit. The selection of artists is amongst Lebanon’s finest in the contemporary art scene. If you take the stairs you get to the coffeeshop too, it’s beautiful.

Souk el Tayeb is a farmer’s market that happens every Saturday where you can buy vegetables from the farmers themselves. Fresh, fair, colorful, and so tasty. There’s also stands with delicious recipes and innovative projects reviving or revisiting some culinary Lebanese traditions. You must try Em Ali’s manoushe, you will not regret it.

For an afternoon meeting, an evening date or a late night drink, Molo never fails me. “Molo” is the name of the owner herself, who’s often serving you your food or your “Mexican beer” (light beer with lemon juice and salt, delicious). She can always recommend the latest addition to the menu. It has a great outdoors sitting area in the Badaro neighborhood, where you’ll have plenty of choices for the bar that will follow.

Ballroom Blitz is definitely a must if you’re a nightlife lover and a club hopper. It’s located in an industrial area, where more than one club are located. The 3-room experience offers different styles with their respective selection of fine DJs. You won’t come out before you can’t stand on your feet anymore, still wanting more. A cherished space-space for sure.

When you come out of Ballroom Blitz in the middle of the night completely famished, jump to Jabbour, nearby, to grab one of the best Shawarmas in town. Special tip: Ask the man making you the sandwich to add some grenadine molasse to it. An explosion of taste.

For a proper Lebanese lunch or dinner, locals eat at Mezyan, in the Hamra neighborhood. I can’t even begin to count all the things on the menu that are worth trying: Cashew Halloumi, Eggplant Fatté, Batata Harra, Fattoush, obviously hummus. Oh and a pitcher of Araq of course. Choose a night with live music, it often ends up being a party.

For proper sunset and sea view, get ready to trespass the metal fence from the Corniche (don’t panic, everyone does). Grab a snack, a hot drink as it gets windy and choose where you would like to sit, vue-sur-mer. The blessing of living so close to the Mediterranean Sea.

Explore The Creative Underbelly of Beirut with Sama

David Roelen

Berlin

The Black Lodge is an intimate, Twin Peaks inspired, bar which is always decorated with beautiful bouquets that contrast the dark walls and the smoky mix of a shady Berlin crowd. You’ll find a nice selection of beers and well done cocktails, served by a really nice team. 

Apparently run by the owners of Balck Lodge, Bar Brutal has all the things that remind me of the wild times in early 2000’s Berlin Mitte. The right mix of good drinks (long waits) and people who occasionally use the bathrooms for literally everything but their intentional function.

This West Berlin 1980’s relic is so unique that I have a hard time describing it. It’s kinda trashy, kinda kitsch but then just cool at the same time because of its realness. In no-covid times Kumpelnest was always packed with the most eclectic crowd and there was always a vibe. The perfect stop-over on a wild bar night when you need to dance to a Madonna song before moving over to one of the big clubs.

This is a real “Kneipe”, an Eastern German worker’s bar. The Service (usually two middle aged women) draught the beer and prepare simple meals in the small kitchen. It’s one of those places that smell like the hundred thousand of Beers that have been served, blended with old wooden floors. Love to come here whenever I’m in Mitte and have no plans afterwards.

Do De Li is located around the corner from where I live and I have been walking past this restaurant for many years until one rainy night about 3 years ago. It’s worth mentioning that when we entered the place for the first time it looked different than now. It was this cozy, kinda dark, typical Chinese family restaurant with one major difference about it. The walls were covered in framed drawings, showing fantastic beings, drawn in small squares consisting of parallel lines. The nerdy kind of drawing if you know what I mean. They turned out to be drawn by the owner’s 11yo son who is highly gifted and has waaay beyond average IQ. 

Who else is highly gifted here, is the chef. All dishes are extremely tasty and well cooked. The Mapo Tofu is bomb and what’s absolutely outstanding for me are the fried noodles (side dish).
If you go, also try one of their beautiful teas i.e. Rose Tea, the smell is just beautiful.


I won’t say much about W.
Just this: If you are in Neukölln and have a desire for a good Pizza, W is your place to go. It’s simply Berlin’s best Pizza. Period.

The 2nd Chinese restaurant in my neighbourhood that deserves attention. Sitting on a corner in the middle of Kanstr. (Berlin’s Chinatown), it has big windows that give way into the neon light bathed restaurant. Vibrant and delicious, Aroma is my favourite Berlin late night restaurant where one can eat delicious food until 3am, every day. We usually come here after a late screening in the cinema and never get tired of it. The Water Spinach and Pork ribs Salt and Pepper are amazing.

Late Nights in Berlin with Dl Roelen

Minneapolis 

Head to Fhima's for fine Moroccan and Sicilian cuisine. It's tradition before a Gravy show in Minneapolis to go here with my mum and all the homies. We’ll get a private room, a bunch of drinks and get the menu brought out family feast-style. I've tried every item on the menu, and probably quite a few that aren't on there, and have loved every one. My favourite restaurant in Minnesota. Don't miss it.

The nicest little classy bar and restaurant in Rochester. Right downtown – within walking distance from my crib – and the food is sensational. My favourite meal is the Minute Chicken, with the steak fondue appetiser if you're big-time hungry. All the waitresses and bartenders are people I grew up with so tell ‘em Matt Hauri says what’s good.

Pizza shop right down the street from my childhood home. They have the best pizza in all of Rochester, and just the dopest people working there. Every time I step in it turns into a party.

The most poppin' bar that has survived in Rochester. So if you end up in Rochester on any weekend night, Kathy’s is where it's at. It's got a little rooftop that I'd recommend. A lot of hectic memories from back in the day up there.

This is basically where all the rich people in Minnesota live, but even us middle class folk would pull up and show face. It's a big ass lake with a ton of shoreland that people build fancy shit on. Tons of lake bars and supper clubs that people can pull their boats up to. In high school I'd go out there with my boys in a canoe and convince people to let us wild out on their boats. This is as Minnesota as it gets.

If you end up at Minnetonka I recommend Lord Fletcher's, it's the go-to spot on Minnetonka. Giant ass bar. They probably have like five different bars spread out there, could fit like 1,000 people probably. Everyone is lit too.

Another spot to check out on Minnetonka: Big Island is the main spot where everyone goes on weekends. Hundreds of boats tied together, Michelob Golden (the Minnesota beer), waist-high water, it's lit.

It's my favourite club to hit on a weekend night. They've got bottle service, they know what music to play and that’s where you'll find me if I'm in Minneapolis.

This is a Jamaican restaurant and rum bar with discotheque music from all over the world, and they have some of the best Caribbean food that I've had – at least in the Midwest. And just an insane set of rums. It’s a great vibe.

Lit ass bar in downtown Minneapolis. Potentially the most lit gay bar that I've been to, and I spend a lot of time in WeHo. Gay folks party harder than most, baby don't miss it.

Bar and coffee shop all in one. The coffee is fire, the bar is fire, it's pretty poppin'. I met the owner and he's a great fella.

Yung Gravy's Guide to Minnesota 

Los Angeles 

That’s a spot I've been eating at since I was like 17.

This is a Jamaican spot, I started eating here like 2012, they just opened up a new location in Inglewood. I order curry chicken, cabbage, jerk chicken and rice with the hot sauce.

The poppin weed spots in Cali is Cookies, you gotta go to a Cookies store. Berner the homie, he’s the founder of Cookies. So that's the number one weed spot in California.

That's the spot where the basketball players, rappers, celebrities, the models and shit go, you can't just be a regular person trying to get up in there. You can't be on yo phone, you can't take no pictures and you can't record. So you can go there and enjoy yourself, and you don't have to worry about people walking up to you asking for pictures and all this weird shit.

It's multiple locations if you into fashion and I'm not going to give up the spots neither! But H Lorenzo sell certain brands.

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