Alllllllll the way back in time to my last blog post.... To recap for all you bed potatoes.... [bed potato: a person who is too lazy to move to the couch to be a couch potato.] I had just spent over 3 years wandering about like a nomad trying to find my disorganised buddies in the busiest little patch of Tokyo one would ever wish to see.
However in the end, through the magic of wi-fi we were all reunited and I could finally shave the meter long hobo beard that had grown so elegantly in the sheer amount of time it took to find them.
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| impressive beardage no? |
So after a quick shave, my squeaky clean face glistened in the moonlight and attracted the attention of some loitering bar advertisers. These people's job and sole purpose in life is to constantly approach people standing around Hachiko and ply them with useless garbage about the bar / club they work for.
We even have a regular harasser now who spots us every week and bumbles over to present leaflets to our unimpressed visages... However, as these touts get paid per person they lasso and herd into their establishment he keeps offering us a larger and larger discount to choose bar he works for. So, maybe one day soon, he will offer us drinks free, and then I possibly will consider going.
Izakaya!
Izakaya...... what a wonderful phase......
Izakaya...... aint no passing craaaaze!!!
IT MEANS NO MONEY, FOR THE REST OF YOUR DAYYYYS,
ITS A SOBER FREE, PHILOSOPHY.
Izakaya.
Ok, for you
So in summery its a barestraunt (bar + restaurant); you can eat, drink and be merry until the very early hours of the morn. Now as you can imagine these places do have some very good points that make them great places to gather and socialise, but they do have some veeeryyy baadddd ones too. I will arranged them in a good, then bad, layered sandwich as to not tint the pond of opinion too far either way.
This is where we went:
Watami. It's a nice place. I'd even go so far as to say my second favourite so far!! Now to present the izakaya swings and roundabouts!.... coupled together for your reading ease.
1. pro: Enclosed rooms.
Going to a bar and being surrounded by drunken gibbons is inconvenient. Sometimes I just want to inflate a giant bubble of soap around me that would be as light to a vampire. (The drunks would hiss, turn into a bat and fly away from it) But in a Japanese Izakaya you can have your own snuggly little room for just you and the people that you choose to be in it!
Heaven.
It also means it's a little quieter and you can talk to people easier and also without the risk of spies noting down your every word and selling it.
1. con: Enclosed room... next door.
So everybody is sat casually drinking in their own anti social boxes, happy in the awkward conversation less bliss when you start hearing mysterious clunking noises....
What could it be??
Upon closer inspection you realise the noise is coming from the the common black suited drunken salaryman.....
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| http://www.fashimi.com/2010/11/07/drunk-salaryman-on-the-train/ |
2. pro: The button thing.
These are the methods we use in the UK:
- The menu shut (slamming the menu shut extra hard in unison that coincides with the passing of a waiter as to indicate you have made a decision on your food)
- The slightly open mouth and raised hand (this pose makes it look like you wish to say something, and if you hold it long enough somebody is bound to ask you about what you want... right??)
- The increasingly exasperated excuse me (often not wanted to appear rude, instead mumble excuse me in a manner that only a dog could hear, but yet still sigh and grumble when then waiters stroll right by without a glance)
But in Japan, with the prod of a button, a waiter appears as if out of thin air to take your order. Much love for the button.
2. con: Not having the button thing
Having got used to the button, the disappearance of said button causes all hell of inconvenience. Upon making the decision of you order, you lightly close the menu and take your time, safe in the assurance that in a mere 1 minutes time your food and beverages will be on their merry way. HOWEVER, you reach across the table and HORROR OF HORROR there is no button.
Now what?
You're stuck. Alone. In a room feeling increasingly smaller, and it seems no amount of shouting SUMIMASEN (excuse me) through the door can attract the attention of a waiter. This is also when being in your own special tatami box of drinking becomes a double hassle... as sometimes it feels that as soon as your door is shut, everybody instantly forgets you are there.
3. pro: Yummy noms.
Yummy noms and drinky drinks! 飲み放題 means literally all you can drink, a common idea in Japan, and like a buffet of booze you order whatever alcoholic beverage you want in a time limit for a set price. Some of these deals are dependant upon you deciding to use dosh to buy a delicious dish of food (possibly dim sum) to go alongside your copious collection of cocktails. As I'm a food vacuum this isn't a problem for me, and I even found one of my favourite dishes at an Izakaya, the partial fried block of fish.
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| Delicious |
I think it is a bonito fish, but I can never be sure. It is raw on the inside, crispy batter on the outside and 100% yummy! It comes with a little pot of mayo for dipping. I could eat this every day.
The all you can drink deals are usually great value for money as well, You can usually get beers, sake, cassis (a popular blackcurrant liquor that tastes of roundtrees fruit pastel ice lollies) drinks, and a variety of Japanese vodka based 'sours' all for the sweet sweet price of 1200 yen for 2 hours (thats about... *maths* just less than a tenner).
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| enough drinks? |
2. con: Sneaky sneaky appetisers
Now, I'm not usually a person that gets aggravated easily (a hur hurr hurrr), but this sneaky appetiser business needs to just fall off a cliff into a burning snake pit...of doom....
Take a look at this photo.
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Let's see what we have here......3 strands of cucumber, a blob of egg mayo and a little big of slop that looks like vomit.... this costs £4. AND! This is a fancy one....
The worst 'appetiser' i've come across so far was the tiniest platter you've ever seen containing a not-even-fair amount of watery coleslaw. (Yes, that also cost £4.) The worst part of this is however, that these boxes of slop are not only compulsory but the staff just handily neglect to mention it's cost when you enter the izakaya. Thanks Japan.
But using our high levels of intelligence we have learned from our mistakes and have now wised up to their tricks! This means we now often enquire about the price of their minute vegetable slop before we sit down. But it's too late for my bank account as I must have spent nearly £20 or more on these 'dishes'. Due to this I know make a point of actually eating them... just to get my moneys worth.
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