Gentian's Photographic Misadventures

[Gentian]

But rather than settle on any one place, he wanted to give me a tour of some stores he described as "Deep Osaka," i.e. those places that were just so darned Osakan they would make someone from Kanto blush, and scurry away.

First on the list, was an izakaya, which is sort of like a gastropub, but Japanesey, and without chairs, so you stand at the bar, or the tiny plank of wood they like to call a table, and eat, drink, and bet merry. It was great! Had some gyusushi, oden, and a number of other things whose names I don't remember. Also, beer. Lots and lots of beer. Normally, I make it a point to match each alcoholic drink I consume with water to avoid a hangover. That simply wasn't possible this time, but man was it fun!

Couldn't get any pictures though, because of the super-tight confines of the establishment. It was packed! It was pretty neat, though, the way the customers would help pass the food items hand to hand from the cooks behind the bar to those who had bought it. Random people just starting conversations with each other, and talking about this and that. I've never seen that in Japan before. I've been here a long time, been to many different parts of the country, many restaurants, bars, etc, but I've never seen the Japanese being so open and friendly to complete strangers. That, too, was wonderful.

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After that, boss wanted us to follow him to a very special restaurant. Maybe you've heard of yakitori? Supposedly, the restaurant we went to was the very first yakitori restaurant in Japan. Not the first to serve grilled chicken, ofc, but the first one to put them on skewers and use yakitori sauce, and all that stuff that separates yakitori from normal chicken.

It turns out, it was a total hole-in-the-wall. This tiny thing, down a narrow alley right off an old, and famous shrine. We walked in, and were asked if we had reservations. We did not, and boss seemed surprised we needed them. But the mamasan behind the counter decided to let us stay until 8pm, but we would have to leave then. That gave us an hour and a half. Plenty of time, I thought. Only just, as it would turn out.

I hate to continue this enormous blurb, but there are things I want to point out in this pic, so, forging ahead...

First, i was blown away by just how Japanese this place was. I mean, the interior had rough-hewn, but well polished wood paneling and tables. Thee was an old-style teapot on the counter which you can see in the pic above that was shiny with old grease, and I wouldn't doubt if it was stuck to the counter. The light above us was in a similarly greasy basket-style lampshade. The telephone at the end of the bar was an old model with a rotary dial and an honest-to-Celestia bell for a ringer. The staff used it a few times we were there so it wasn't just for show. The shelves behind the bar, and a few other places were covered with bottles of various drinks with peoples names on them. They're called bottle keep in Japanese (har har) and are reserved for the regulars who have their names on them. It felt like I'd walked into an anime, and not just any anime, like something set in older times like Sakura Wars or Blood the Last Vampire (the OVA, not the series).

So, we took a seat at the bar, but there was no menu. In fact, you don't really choose what you want. The mamasan you see behind the smoke in the right of the pic just asked us if there was anything we didn't like. "No," we said, and she set to work. The drinks were self service, so we walked to the refrigerator and took out some beer, and sat down to watch her barbecuing various sorts of chicken bits on an actual charcoal grill. Right there on the counter. Real wood charcoal sticks, too, not "charcoal" briquettes. The entire establishment smelled of smoke and cooking chicken. We talked and drank, and made friends with some of the others at the bar. It wasn't as cramped as the izakaya had been but there was very little room to move, and everyone was friendly. Once they found out I could speak Japanese they started asking about Twilight, and we had some conversations about Equestria, Ponies, and all that stuff in between bites of random chicken parts as they came off the grill. We didn't order, remember, it was just whatever mamasan felt like cooking, and it was great fun!

Oh and another thing worth mentioning before I close up this novel, the sauce in this place. It's a house sauce, ofc, but it's also a legacy sauce, meaning they don't empty out and clean the sauce vat. They use it until it gets low, then make more sauce right in with the old. And the sauce has been in constant use/refresh mode since the founding of the store, decades and decades ago. It's unbelievably good, and has so many layers of flavor you have to taste it to believe it. The restaurant is called Yaetei, according to boss, and I highly recommend it!

Oh yeah, the second thing. I also got to try a new spice. Its' called kaori sanshou and tastes a bit like bitter oranges. A perfect compliment to grilled chicken, much to my surprise.