My always hungry wife S and I are devoted Japanese food addicts. We recently realized that 8 of 10 meals we eat out at are at Japanese restaurants. One reason might be that we’re pretty proficient at cooking most other cuisines, so when heading out of the house, we tend to go somewhere where we can’t get food we could otherwise whip up for each other.
Another, much stronger reason is that we just really love going out for Japanese food. We adore all aspects of Japanese cuisine and are equally happy sitting in some small ramen joint as we are partaking in a highly formal, proper kaiseki dinner. And while I wish we could afford to hit our favourite sushi joint on a weekly basis, doing so would put us in the poor house faster than you could say “aburi toro”. Most often, we go to izakaya style restaurants. An izakaya, for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure yet, is a Japanese gastropub, a drinking establishment that also happens to serve darned good food. The dishes are often small and can be easily shared. Which makes them perfect accompaniments for the booze that is often poured (and consumed) quickly and liberally at these establishments.
