Having finished our studies at the Fish Research Center, and wanting somewhere else to go, Preacher and I perused the back alleys of Shinbashi some more.
For some reason I thought this place looked good in a down-home way. I was more or less wrong.
Certainly it was authentic and cheap, and the customers and master were appropriately ‘gritty’ and ‘real’, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that if we said the wrong thing we’d get beaten up.
The fish in the case looked like they had been deeply abused, squeezed in every which way.
Just to show you what it was like without killing too much of your time, here are the izakaya standards that we ate. The guy at top left was enormous, I mean sumo enormous but without the height; I include this so you can see a slice of the menu, mostly. Cucumbers, with miso; usually should be with barley miso, but this place was too cheap! Grilled eggplant; peel the skin and they’re jus tlike steamed eggplant, which is to say healthy but not so interesting or appetizing. Dried skate wing, a favorite of mine since it’s preserved in sweet wine before drying and grilling. Deep fried flounder (or equivalent), along with the battered and fried skeletons, which you’re meant to eat like crackers (nice when they’re done properly, but these were too soft so they still felt bony to eat). Grilled shishamo, a little whole fish – not a favorite of mine due to the need to eat the heads, bones and all the organs; some folks like ’em.
Hell, the pictures were nice at least, right?
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