How Ichiban works

Every ranking on this site comes from one person eating one thing at a time and then answering one question: which was better?

No scores. No stars. No written reviews. Scoring out of ten falls apart after about thirty entries, because a 9 in March is not a 9 in November. Comparisons hold up. When something new gets eaten, it gets compared against what is already on the list until it finds its place. Everything on this site is the result of 0 of those comparisons.

What I have actually eaten

Every list says how many entries it has, because the number is the whole point. "Best ice cream in Japan" means best of the 0 I have eaten in Japan. It does not mean I have eaten all of them. When the number is small, the list says so.

Lists stay private until there are ten entries. They are marked provisional until twenty-five.

What is not here

I do not rank things I have not eaten. There is no aggregation of other people's opinions, no scraping, no scores borrowed from anywhere else.

Nobody pays to be on this site. There is no sponsored placement, there are no affiliate links, and there is no advertising. If that ever changes it will be stated at the top of this page, in this size of type, before it changes.

The Ichiban

一番 means number one. There is exactly one Ichiban per category, and it holds the spot until something beats it. When that happens it is recorded on the movements page with the date.

Who

One palate. Based in Kyoto. Eating is the entire method.

Corrections

Recipes change, chefs leave, shops close. Items can be retired, which removes them from live rankings but leaves them in the archive with the date. Nothing is ever deleted.