Tama is an izakaya run by a pair of brothers who are fishermen, and since I’d heard they get great ingredients in, I picked a day and went. That’s the perk of a town by the sea. A place where people who really know their flavours source the ingredients and do the cooking can hardly be bad.
Otoshi
Konnyaku stir-fried like yakisoba in a mildly spicy sauce. It has a bit of a kick and is even a little filling.
Perfect as a light warm-up snack with your beer before you get going for real.
The menu
Prices aren’t especially high. Portions are pretty generous too, so unless you order something particularly pricey or drink like a fish, you could call it cheap. This is exactly the kind of place middle-aged guys love.
Sashimi moriawase (assorted sashimi)
The freshness that day wasn’t as great as I’d expected. It seems to vary a bit depending on the time and the day. Since they take out their own boat, there’s a good chance you won’t eat that well when the weather is bad.
Sugaki (oysters in vinegar)
Winter really is oyster season. It’s a pity the vinegar is so strong you can’t taste the oysters’ aroma, but I love oysters anyway, so I ate them happily. Truth be told, tonight’s dinner was oysters too…
Nodoguro nitsuke (simmered blackthroat seaperch)
A huge one, and apparently the only one they got in that day. It was so expensive we couldn’t order the whole fish, sadly, so we paid 5,000 yen for half and asked for it simmered as nitsuke. That’s a steep price for this part of the country. Then again, I can’t even guess what you’d have to pay for a whole nodoguro this size in Tokyo. True to its reputation as an aristocrat among fish, the flesh melted away so softly it was hard to pick up with chopsticks. That rich, almost buttery flesh loses its flavour once it cools, so you have to eat it quickly.
Crab on the house
We ran up a decent bill that day and I chatted with the owner like an old acquaintance, and out came a freebie. This region is famous for its winter crab. It had gone cold, but it seems like the best simple snack to go with a drink.
Fugu karaage, deep-fried pufferfish
Fugu is in season, so I ordered it, and the flesh was firm and bouncy and delicious. A generous portion too; with this, there’s no need to go all the way to Shimonoseki. It’s lighter than ordinary karaage, so it seemed to suit sake better than Shaoxing wine. And of course it goes with a draft beer too.
Thanks to the drinks and the nodoguro, the bill came to a fair bit that day. The beer in particular is pricey, sadly. I’m wondering whether I should switch to sake next time…