Food and Drink

Despite being a keen cyclist, charged with delivering this substantial feast, I’m pretty sure that within seconds of setting off, each and every dish would have been strewn all over the street. This fella, on the other hand, was bombing along not the least bit concerned by the weight, road signals and incredibly impressed bystanders.

This little peanut and snack shop opened a few years after the war, and yet even now, after all those decades, its 90-year-old owner still isn’t ready to retire.

Maybe it was the beer, or possibly the bowl of ramen that went with them, but that last, sad looking solitary gyoza, was clearly one mouthful too many.

On a hot summer’s day, it’s hard to beat the very simple pleasure of a chilled cucumber dipped in some salty miso. Or for those with a preference for something sweeter, a generous dollop of mayonnaise instead of the miso. Both of which, at least on this particular occasion, came with the added extra of a cold hard stare.

On the topic of summer, a rest and some travelling is very much in order, so from today, the usual 3 posts a week will be reduced to a far more manageable 1 every Monday. Then, from September 2nd, the regular Monday, Wednesday and Friday updates will resume as normal.

Many of Tokyo’s little old bars are a complete mystery from the outside. One can hope that inside it’s what you are looking for, but until the door is slid open, it’s simply impossible to say.

Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t, but when it’s got bags of character like this place, and has been run by same lovely old woman for the last 43 years, you know you are on to a winner.

The interiors of more than a few Tokyo bars are truly timeless, and in this particular case, the blurring of the decades was nicely aided by some wonderfully old school headwear.