Kiraku

Rating: OK
Meal:  Dinner for 3
Price:  Around 5000 yen
Payment:  Cash only
Dishes: Lots of different yakitori
English Menu: No
Smoking: Yes

Last night a visiting friend from the US invited me to have some yakitori for dinner at a restaurant run by some people he is friends with.  Kiraku is a yakitori restaurant located near Shioiri station, in an area I don't frequent much.  It's on the 2nd floor of a non-descript building and there is no english anywhere.  This is a Japanese joint for sure.  The owners are a mother/son pair, the mother is very old, but still sprightly, and the son is probably old enough to be my dad.  It was fun to be there with someone who knew them and could navigate the Japanese with ease.

There is no English menu, just katakana tags up along the wall.  You just tell them what you want (or point) and how many.  They have some somewhat unusual items, such as bacon, tomato and cheese (which was delicious), pork tongue (a bit tough), tsukune (chicken balls, these were dense and a bit crunchy, quite good), garlic (not cooked as much as I would like), chicken skin (we asked for it to be a bit crunchy and it came back crisp on the top and melty on the bottom, very good), and some kind of green pepper (like jalapeno with some slight heat, great flavor).  I kept forgetting to take pictures, so what I have here is just a sampling.

It was good, but not mind blowing.  Definitely an interesting spot to know about and maybe take people some day.

Tongue

Bacon, tomato and cheese

Butter corn

Garlic with miso paste