The Izakaya Experience @ Yarukiyo, Gaienmae, Tokyo

Regular readers will know that I have described Tokyo as a labyrinth, making it very difficult to find specific locations. I'll give you an example - I booked a haircut at a place called "Sinden" in the Omotesando district. I downloaded the map off the website and it seemed easy enough. But, unlike Melbourne, anything can be anywhere, a vintage clothing shop can be on the 2nd storey of a Japanese restaurant, a Karaoke bar can be on the 4th floor of an office block and a hairdresser can be in a back alley running off a residential side-street. Lucky I had given myself a 10 minute buffer to find the place, as is often the case nowadays.

So following a quick trim with my friendly former London based hairdresser, I looked at my list of places to check out to see if I was in the vicinity of anything. The description of the recommended izakaya, Yarukiyo noted: "Hard to find even though its on a main street. Call once you're close and Kei will help you find it - Jingumae B1 3-1-21 34758963."

I have now learned how to decipher Japanese addresses. In the above example - 3 is the suburb, 1 is the block, 21 is the building number and B1 is the level in the building. So reasonably quickly (for me at least) I found the building, with a Chinese restaurant on street level, this little Izakaya was hidden downstairs in the basement underneath. I walked in and was greeted by 2 Japanese guys behind a bar that had not more than 15 seats and no other patrons. I sat down, eyed the chop-sticks balancing on a shell covered peanut in front of me, ordered a beer and in Jinglish asked the guy holding the knife to make me whatever the specialty was.

Wow. This was like a degustation being made in front of my eyes. I'll try to recall/name/describe it all but to be honest I have no idea what most of it was:
1. Baby Cuttlefish, with bok choy & hollandaise
The chef must have been trying to test my mettle by starting with cuttlefish. Interesting texture, calamari-like but less chewy. Incredible sharp hollandaise. Overall great.
2. Fried crumbed white-fish with ginger and onion paste
A great second dish - the fish was rolled in some sort of crumbs, topped with an incredibly flavoursome and thick ginger paste. Excellent.
3. Oden Beef Cheek and Turnip with Wasabi
Oden is a big steamer filled with different goodies like fish cakes, eggs, root vegetables and other things. This was a tender beef cheek placed on top of a steamed turnip (I think). Very hearty and enjoyable.

4. Fried Panko Crumbed Tuna
This was my highlight - see photo. The tuna was sliced right in front of my eyes. The centre a beautiful deep red, the outside lightly seared, the Panko crumb giving it a schnitzel like texture. Incredible!

By this stage 3 others had entered the bar:
- 1 x 36yo male Japanese real estate agent about to visit NYC
- 1 x 29yo female Japanese secretary who said I was "very handsome"
- 1 x 89yo male Japanese (no idea what his deal was)
After they entered I moved onto Shocchu, a Japanese spirit like Sake so my memory of the last 2 dishes was a little hazy.

5. 3-of-a-kind (Potatoes with bacon pieces, buk choy and beef/tofu) - see photo.
6. Char-grilled Green Chilli

I told the Japanese chef that it was one of my best meals in Tokyo to which one of the other guys in the bar called me a "Bootlicker" in Japanese ("Asslicker" is the translation in English).

Overall a highly memorable meal. For those visiting me here in Tokyo, you will get taken here. For those that aren't, I'll take better photos next time.