A good Izakaya (essentially a Japanese Pub with emphasis on Food and Drink) is something to be cherished. It's a place where you can gather with friends or family, or just relax by yourself and enjoy a nice selection of good Japanese Sake, Shochu or Beer, and tasty little Small Plates of things that are usually categorized by Fried, Sauteed, [...]
Launching a new restaurant is always a challenging task, but even more daunting in our current economic times. With the right focus and hook, a new restaurant will be on the path to eventual success. But when they don't deliver on their hook, what they claim to focus on, then that's a problem.For the newly opened Japanese Pub, Niwattori [...]
I remember hearing whispers of a possible Okinawan restaurant months ago, which made me very happy. It's always good when we can get specialist restaurants focused on specific cuisines. :) And then thanks to gachimai's early report on Chowhound (and subsequent feedback from others), my interest and excitement in Shin Okinawa Izakaya only [...]
Like the Yakitori-ya, another facet of Japanese cuisine that still hasn't gained the popularity of Sushi in the U.S. would have to be the concept of Japanese Small Plates and the Izakaya, approximated as "Japanese Tapas" from time-to-time. Essentially the idea of the Izakaya is like a Japanese Pub, a place to relax and drink from a good selection [...]
What makes a great Izakaya (Japanese Pub) or Kappo restaurant (focused on the culinary arts) can be many things, depending on the individual. For one of my Tokyo friends, it's a place that's close by, that serves reliable food and drink, and where they can relax after work. For a Saitama friend, it's a place that has the most extensive Sake menu. [...]
My favorite style of Japanese dining would have to be at Izakayas. Around the world, Sushi is the more popular and famous form of Japanese dining, but Izakayas are becoming more and more prevalent, especially in the L.A. / Southern California. Sushi is wonderful, but having discovered what some people call the "Japanese Tapas / Small Dishes" [...]
For those that have been following the developments around the temporary loss of one of L.A.'s best hidden gems - Yakitori Bincho - and its subsequent transformation to its current incarnation (as "Izakaya Bincho"), there's some good news as Chef Tomo has debuted a new Seasonal Menu in addition to his original Menu. For those that haven't been [...]
Earlier this year, a wonderful hidden gem of a restaurant was discovered on Chowhound in Yakitori Bincho, a small mom-and-pop restaurant literally run by 2 people, Tomo-san (the Yakitori Chef) and his wife, Megumi-san, who ran the front of the house. They arrived from Japan in the hopes of opening up a Yakitori (Roasted Skewers of Meats and [...]
So at the end of the long day in Akihabara, we were too tired to head out too far from our hotel in Shinjuku. We had passed by an interesting looking Izakaya called "inton", which basically had a cute Pig Mascot and a claim that they focused in only Live Pig Cuisine(!). Intrigued, we set out to try it.When we stepped inside the basement-level [...]
I still remember my first visit to Sagami ~5-6 years ago when I was visiting a friend in Irvine, and we wanted to grab something quick that wasn't "fast food." My friend mentioned a place with really good Chicken Teriyaki Bowls that were tasty. And they were: For ~$5 you could get a Chicken Bowl that included a HUGE amount of grilled Chicken that [...]
