Following the unfortunatosity that was Tsuruya, Big Bird and I ventured over to his ‘home quadrant’ of Kachidoki, where there’s one street with a few decent-looking places. The soba looks pretty good, and so did this place. It turned out OK. Any place with the audacity to call themselves ‘Season’ must have a bit of […]
dinner
- izakaya
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Tsuruya, Kachidoki (つるや)
There’s this great little place near the crossing in Kachidoki called Kanemasu. It’s just a standing bar, but they have some good food, especially these rolls of raw beef tenderly wrapped around the freshest briny sea urchin. This post is not about Kanemasu, it’s about the place around the corner that wasn’t full. Looks good […]
Daruma, Monzen Nakacho (だるま)
After getting hijacked into eating guts and drinking fake…not even beer, I guess I proved my street cred enough. Jerry sent a bottle of sake for me, and Hikuzo was nice enough to bring it up (from Tsukishima, which isn’t all that far really – perhaps 20 minutes on foot, or one stop). Being a […]
- izakaya
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Omasa Komasa, Higashi Nakano (大政小政)
Really, apologies to all my sake-drinking friends. I don’t know what possessed me to go to Tachikawa today – and you didn’t miss anything out there, I promise. But on the way back I got to thinking…passing through Nishi Kokubunji always does that too me. I only went there twice. The first time was to […]
- izakaya
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Oumi, Tachikawa (青海)
The waitress from Zukunashi walked me down to this place, introduced me to the master, and then left. She has a business to run, after all. I was left with a two-sided sake menu and a bunch of snack options, in a rustic, deliberately old-style interior. It was kinda bustly, but I just sat and […]
- izakaya
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Zukunashi, Tachikawa (ずくなし)
After spending some time reading, trying to nap, and swatting ants in the big Showa Kinen Park, I started walking around when I thought shops would be opening. Sometimes my approach lets me down. Much as I love picking an unfamiliar area and just rolling around, freestyling, looking for good stuff, the whole woody-exterior, bottles-outside […]
- izakaya
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Luck! Zen, Ningyocho (なごみ屋楽膳)
You and I (and You is my colleague, not you) tried to go to this place tonight that I spotted while jogging after the typhoon. Looked like an abandoned building where people had set up a squatter business grilling clams and squid, with self-service drinks. They have a web site. And they were fully booked. […]
- izakaya
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Koju, Kanda (かんだ光寿 )
We all have our biases, and in this case the thing that kept me from going to Koju much sooner was the web site. It’s spectacularly uninformative, and even confusing – the main picture shows a man in a firesuit, leaning against the front of a racecar. It does not contain the shop’s address. Nor […]
Hide Margherita, Kagurazaka
When I was in college, we used to play this game called ‘Hide the Salami’. Well, sort of. Anyway, every time I see this place I think of this phrase. And then I think of this Australian guy I knew in business school. His name was Haydn, and if you say that in the quaint […]
El Pulpo, Kagurazaka
I have a complex relationship with Spanish restaurants in Japan – or more properly with ‘Spain Bars’ as they’re called. Usually I find them fiddly and overpriced. The concept should be similar to an izakaya, with small plates and drinks at reasonable prices. I’ve learned to like the izakaya style – the ordering pattern, the […]