Yakitori Nite

My colleague, J, and I walked down a flight of steps to the basement and entered a dimly lit hole. The mood was nice and cozy and could accomodate at most 13 diners. Nice smooth jazz was playing and the chef was just heating up the charcoal to prepare for the night ahead of him. It was cold outside, so we ordered hot sake to warm ourselves up. Next, not understanding the menu in Japanese, we nodded when the waitress pointed to the dinner set menu for the night. When the chef pointed to the clock and said 9pm in halting english, we assumed that we had up till 9pm to finish our dinner as in some popular Japanese restaurants, they have allocated time slots in order to accomodate more customers.

I began my gastronomical journey. Worth mentioning is the juicy and tender minced chicken on stick. The meat was fresh and well marinated and had the charcoal barbequed fragrance. My favourite had to be the skewered chicken neck meat. The meat was moist, tender and chewy at the same time. The rice and soup dish was very interesting. We watched the chef grill the riceball painstakingly and with pride and plopped it into a bowl of steaming chicken soup.

After 2 hours, at approximately 9pm, final dessert was served and we realised that the chef was trying to tell us that dinner would last till 9pm. We put on our coats and prepared to leave the small cozy shop. All three shouted arigato gozaimasu numerous times until we were well up the stairs.