Not too long ago, Big Bird and I walked by this place. I thought it might be unseemly for a big bird to enter a beaver – too obvious, not funny, old plastic food – so we let the sleeping beaver lie. But I wanted to get in there, for irony value if nothing else. There are plenty of lunches, and irony is as good a reason to eat them out as any.
Irony abounds once you get inside here. It’s very much like the sitting room of your maiden aunt. The waitress proudly told me they’ve been serving for 51 years though, so there’s certainly been more traffic in and out of this place than Mildred’s front room.
As befits the general tenor, the fittings are worn and sticky. I mean, using vinyl chairs like the backseat of a 70’s Chevy is begging for trouble. And the karaoke set, of similar vintage and mien, is just like a setup for awkward situations. (It must come as small comfort that I didn’t say ‘hairy’.)
You’d know right away from seeing the plastic food outside what kind of plates they bang out. I couldn’t resist munching on the signature item though – the Beaver Taste cutlet. As you can see it’s quite crusty, no bad thing under these circumstances. It’s too bad that they’ve already sprayed dressing all over the tangle of salad, and the cold ketchup-flavored pasta is nothing to mention either. As it usually is with a plate like this, the focus is on the main event, just laying there, seeming to say “eat me”.
Here’s the upskirt shot. If this doesn’t qualify as ‘wide open‘, I don’t know what does. See what they did here? It’s a thin pork cutlet, then a layer of seasoned ground pork and green onions, all battered up and fried. It was decent. Not good enough to deserve its own name in the pantheon of Japanese junk food, but evidently good enough to keep the place tenuously clinging to life for more than 50 years.
You could call it reaching new lows or plumbing new depths, I don’t mind.
03-3254-1746
