Dining out in Tokyo can be a bit tricky if you don’t speak Japanese. Surprisingly few restaurants offer English menus (despite the government’s efforts to encourage menu translation), and servers are often hesitant to admit they speak a word of English.
Most of our restaurant meals in Tokyo were either facilitated by Japanese friends or at well-researched spots we knew we’d be able to navigate, but on a few occasions we got adventurous and improvised. One of the big successes was an evening at a counter at a small restaurant in Ueno serving yakitori, little skewers of grilled veggies, fish, and meat.
All (or at least enough) of the options were out on display, so we could just point to what we wanted and the cook would grill it up for us.
We noticed that a popular drink involved fresh squeezed grapefruit juice over ice with a shot of shochu (a Japanese spirit similar to vodka often made from sweet potatoes). More pointing got us some of those, too.
It’s typical for Japanese restaurant meals to consist of lots of little shared dishes and be ordered in stages, a pacing which I really enjoyed. Order up a couple skewers of veggies, watch them get grilled, eat them, then decide what you want next. The cook would serve each dish to us on a long paddle.
Usually one orders rice towards the end of the meal, but this night we were too busy stuffing ourselves with veggies to remember or care.
This is the name of the restaurant, if you care to try to locate it. The first part means “counter,” but the second part is beyond my meager Japanese skills.
