The Local Watering Hole

    On our first night in Tokyo, we stumbled, bleary-eyed, out into the night in search of something to eat. The flight from Korea was pretty short and there was no time difference- we just felt out of sorts for some reason. Our first stop- a sushi restaurant recommended by our host- was shuttered and dark. So we made our way to the other side of the river until we passed a place that looked crowded and therefore popular. It turns out it was popular, but it was mostly crowded due to being very, very small. A U-shaped bar separated the kitchen from patrons, and there was just about enough room between the bar and the walls for one person to stand and another to squeeze past. Small tables in alcoves by the door approximately doubled the capacity.

Fried ginko nuts and the house sake

    We squirmed through the press of people to an open space in the corner of the bar. To our dismay, the menu was entirely in Japanese. Google Translate has been great, but it really struggles with food. This makes sense when you think about translating something like "hot dog." As we struggled to decode the menu, the man next to us asked if we needed any help- miraculously he spoke perfect English! He explained the menu, helped us order drinks, and, most importantly, translated the handwritten specials on the whiteboard. Meanwhile we told him a bit about our trip and he shared some details about himself. He had a long career in journalism, including being stationed in Egypt for a while.

The menu - very intimidating if you can't read Japanese

    The bar, he explained, was a traditional tachinomi, or standing bar- there were no seats, only standing room around the bar and a few tables in the corners. The crowd was mostly businessmen stopping for a drink on their way home from work. Another quirk of a tachinomi is that everyone must order at least one drink- although if you don't want alcohol, you can order a soda or a tomato juice. We ordered a few dishes from the menu and a few plates of sashimi from the daily specials. One after another, we found the bites delicious! The sashimi was generous, thick slices of incredibly flavorful fish, including a few kinds of fish we'd never had before, like bonito. When the bill came we were shocked- everything was so good, and we were full, and it cost about $7 USD per person.

The daily seafood specials were posted on this whiteboard- Matt can only read what's written in hiragana, but these were often written in katakana.

Google Translate sometimes struggled to translate the handwritten specials.

The specials changed daily, but tuna (center) was always available.

    We've written a bit in the past about how pricing at Japanese restaurants is counterintuitive for us, and this bar is a big part of that impression. As far as we can tell, prices are low due to two factors: 1) No seats. Consistently, we've seen that restaurants with seating or tables are able to charge more. And 2) No rice. Sashimi is much less expensive that sushi. This is usually the opposite in the US in our experience, because sashimi comes with more fish. Here, it seems that you pay a premium for the expertise and training required to construct a sushi or nigiri roll correctly.

A bundle of vegetable tempura- tasty! You have to pry it apart with your chopsticks.

    By our next visit the following week, Matt had learned to read and write hiragana. This was critical because you order at the bar by writing down what you want on a slip of paper and passing it to one of the three staff. This time, we ordered all the dishes that caught our eyes- and reader, honestly, they were all excellent. It's amazing the variety that comes out of that tiny kitchen. We ordered fried ginkgo nuts, which we've tried elsewhere and found to be meh at best, but are delicious at the tachinomi. We ordered more sashimi, of course. A simple dish of stewed eggplant and chewy deep fried mochi in a savory broth is one of the tastiest things we've eaten in Japan.

The house sake, fried ginko nuts, and (on the left) mochi with fried eggplant. Ginko nuts contain a toxin and it's not recommended to eat more than eleven. Conveniently, the bar almost always served 22 nuts- eleven for each of us!

Back: mochi and eggplant in a tasty broth, front: some kind of puffed meaty thing.

    We noticed our friend from the previous visit at the other end of the bar and waved, but he was too far to help us. Fortunately another friendly patron standing next to us immediately offered to help. This would become a regular pattern.  It must have been something to do with the informal, relaxed atmosphere... or maybe we just looked so lost and confused, people felt compelled to step in. As the weeks added up, we began to realize that the same crowd was frequenting the bar, and we were slowly meeting many of them.  We continued going about once a week, and quickly identified our favorite menu items, including fried garlic, maitake mushroom tempura, and grilled saury fish. Every time we went, new and exciting specials appeared on the white board.

Thick slices of tuna sashimi

Freshly prepared katsuo, or bonito, sashimi. Bonito is a red, meaty fish like tuna.

    Eventually the stars aligned- Matt's sister Kayla joined us on the day they had sea urchin as a special. Kayla loves sea urchin! As usual, the tachinomi provided a generous portion of unusually tasty urchin. Katsuo, or bonito, appeared frequently, and is a new favorite. Yellowtail was also often available. On one memorable night, Matt painstakingly translated a special, character by character, and looked it up on google to find that they were selling fish semen, or to use a slightly more appealing name, milt. He tried some battered and fried and to Karen's everlasting skepticism, thinks it was pretty good and would order it again.

A hefty serving of sea urchin (uni)

    We also remember fondly the first time Kayla joined us at the tachinomi. When Matt tried to pay, he had a hard time getting the bartender's attention. A woman helpfully called the bartender over for him. We don't speak enough Japanese to understand what was said, but Matt did catch that she referred to him as gaijin-san. Gaijin means "foreigner" and san is an honorific that shows respect. So gaijin-san would be something akin to "the honorable Mr. Foreigner."

You can trade your receipt from your last visit for a free "snack". This tasty dried fish was one of the tastier snacks we got this way.

We were told to eat the whole thing, which Kayla put to the test by immediately eating the tail. It was good!

    Raised on TV shows like Cheers, Friends, and How I Met Your Mother, who among us hasn't nurtured a tender fantasy of being a "regular" at a local bar. We imagine meeting our friends there each night, receiving "the usual" from a bartender who already knows what we'll be ordering. But making this a reality is difficult. Distance and conflicting schedules make regular meet-ups with friends a challenge.  And, anyway, are we really willing to commit the necessary time and money to one place, week after week, to build a rapport with the staff?

Yellowtail (hamachi) sashimi

    For some, this way of life is still thriving in Japan. Many people have a routine that allows for regular after-work evenings spent at their neighborhood bar. And the low prices make it a more palatable option than it would be in the US. We've enjoyed a lot of things during our time in Japan- the food, the plentiful and accessible bathhouses, the exuberant celebration of the turning of the seasons- but in some ways the opportunity to live the dream of grabbing dinner and drinks at the local bar, knowing and being known, is one of the things that we'll miss the most.

Sincerely one of Matt's favorite meals. Matt has called this tachinomi "the best restaurant in Tokyo, maybe in Japan."