YAKITORI TOKYO STYLE

As H1 says, I am in Japan ( I have just left Tokyo and am in Nikko. Report soon to follow on EAT MY GLOBE )

However, since he is talking about Yakitori, I thought I would give you a glimpse of what I have been up to.

Small pubs litter Tokyo, particularly in areas near train stations where they are set up to serve the salarymen with beer and snacks before they head home. Usually pissed as newts and just before a much needed vomit at the JR station.

Primarily they serve Yakitori which strictly means chicken on skewers, but in practice turns out to be a range of meat and vegetables on skewers served either sprinkled with salt or dipped in a sauce before being plonked in front of you with a cold beer or a glass of soschu(sp?)

Here are some images of places I tried and some of the skewers. In the Ueno area (where I was staying) at a counter where the tables were beer crates as were most of the seats, I had skewers of chicken skin, livers and hearts. In the notorious “Piss Alley” of Shin Juku, I had skewers of roast garlic as well as “ the base of the beef tongue” and “chicken diaphragm” I also had roasted sweet peppers and beef tendon. And, in a slightly more upmarket version, I had chicken cartilage.

It is not cheap, mainly because of the cost of the booze (which comes in at about £2.50 for a draft beer and more for the unfeasibly large bottles of Sapporo or Kirin) and I usually found myself about Yen1500-2000 (£7.50-10) poorer after four or five skewers.

The costs in London look comparable and, by comparison, the quality of what HP had looks good too. The difference being that there are hundreds of these places to choose from here and I cant think of an equivalent back home. Also,I would imagine, they have a much wider selection of bits to choose from.

I have lots more images, but the horribly slow computer in my hotel precludes for now.

Off to eat some more. Carry on.