Uoichi is an izakaya I really do go to all the time. Being on good terms with the owner plays a big part, but the food is pretty great too, and since you can taste the local specialties of this region, it’s a good place to take visitors from out of town. Plenty of people probably assume local cuisine is naturally delicious, but actually serving it well isn’t easy. To survive the price war with the flood of cheap chain izakaya, you have to compete either on taste or on price. Only a handful of well-known places in each region serve proper local food, and they aren’t exactly cheap either, so when you go looking for good food out in the regions you need to do your research and be ready to spend a bit.
I’d actually planned to go somewhere else, but around 6 yesterday a friend from Tokyo suddenly got in touch to say he was in town on business, so we hurried over here instead. It was decided so last-minute that I couldn’t bring my camera and just shot everything on my iPhone. Better than no photos at all, but the quality is really poor. I hope the new iPhone coming out next June has a better camera.
Buri (yellowtail) sashimi
Winter means buri
Matsuba crab
Crab is a pain to eat, but it’s the local specialty here, so you have to have it. Crab season is starting, so I should go out for crab every weekend..
Shijimi clam croquette
Tastes like an ordinary croquette. I’ve had this one before, so I’ll skip it..
Oki wagyu steak
A steak of the legendary -_- beef from the Oki Islands. The flavor was out of this world.. but it came drowned in too much sauce. That one plate was over 2,000 yen, but it was worth every bit.
Buta no kakuni, something like Chinese dongpo pork.
The seasoning was a little light, but it was cooked well.
Shirako-yaki (grilled milt)
I believe it was milt (testes), and it’s tender. A very satisfying dish..
Salt-grilled nodoguro
Truly delicious nodoguro (blackthroat seaperch) has to be eaten salt-grilled. This one is on the small side, but big ones can go for 5,000 yen apiece. Of course, I’m broke, so I just have to make do with the small ones.
We finished with Inaniwa udon, but I have no photo -_-
The joy of an izakaya is being able to pick all sorts of dishes to your liking without any fuss, usually with drinks. So of course it’s a fun time, but if the food is done properly, it’s bound to cost a bit more than a specialist restaurant. (Chain izakaya are places you go to drink with abandon, not places you go to eat good food.) Still, this place isn’t all that expensive, which was a relief. After a good meal we wondered where to go for a second round, but we both had a busy day ahead, so we called it a night. I’ll see him next time I’m in Tokyo anyway.
There’s Christmas this month, and we talked about how we’ll both probably be too busy with work to go anywhere around then. Well.. knowing I’m not the only one who’s busy was a bit of a comfort. I guess that’s what friends are for. -_-;