One day after school I was feeling particularly energetic and I wanted to do some exploring. My usual companions were either occupied or uninterested, so I went it alone. I rode my bike around Ashikaga's central train station a bit, just zagging down the narrow streets in the direction of anything that caught my interest. I enjoy riding my bike without any purpose: it gives me some time to reflect as well as a bit of exercise.
Eventually I found a place that looked good. It seemed small enough that it would have some character to it. One of those restaurants where the owner lives in the back room. When I entered, the worn man behind the counter didn't react. He hesitated, probably waiting for me to ask directions in some language he didn't care to understand. I asked him if he was open in Japanese, and that seemed to placate him. He snapped back into service mode and brought a hot towel to the counter where I had decided to sit.
I ordered a beer first to give him something to do. We were the only two souls in the place, and I needed time to make sense of the menu without him standing and eyeballing me. I wasn't having much luck. I could read many of the words, I just didn't grasp their meaning. I had hit a wall and I needed to make a choice fast. Not wanting to just sit and order the cheese sticks, I just winged it and ordered one of everything under the menu heading "yakitori".
This was a yakitori pub, I had gathered that much from the sign outside. Yakitori is literally "grilled chicken". Its just a bit of chicken or other animals grilled on a mini kebab: the fun part is what bit of the chicken is being offered.
So one by one the skewered animal bits came, on a stick alternating with slices of leek. The barman kindly added salt or tare sauce to give them flavor.
I don't think I would knowingly eat all of these things in one sitting. My partial ignorance meant that I had to wait until the next day at work to ask my teachers what exactly I had eaten. It wasn't half bad really.
That yakitori looks delicious. I love that you can find yakitori or ramen shops hidden in neighborhoods. I have been to a few myself.
ReplyDeleteYou had to be really hungry to eat all that stuff! It looks really good. I think it is cool that you have been exploring different areas, I used to do that we I first got here to the US, of course the places are really different..
ReplyDeleteTornadoes28,
ReplyDeleteYes it is cool to find the little hidden places. I don't do it all the time though, because the menus are usually a lot harder to read and the staff aren't used to foreigners so they are a bit grumpy on occasion. A good opportunity to practice my Japanese though!
Angelica,
ReplyDeleteThey might look a bit bigger because I took close-up pictures. I can easily eat 10-15 of these things in one sitting. Have any new restaurants opened in Carlinville lately?