Celebrating Japanese Izakaya!

This is a cool Izakaya restaurant in Tokyo, where the Chefs perform for you after cooking! More on that later…

In 2022, I made a recipe from one of my cookbooks every week for a year, and one of my favorites was this collection of izakaya dishes from this terrific Japanese Pub Food cookbook!

The Japanese word izakaya (居酒屋) is made up of three kanji with the meaning, in order, “stay-drink-place.” A spot to grab a drink, settle in, and get comfortable.

Since I have been lucky enough to travel to Tokyo five times, I wanted to cook from this terrific Japanese Pub cookbook! Let’s go!

Marinated Grilled Ginger Chicken!

I am going to make a variety of “chopstick food”: easy to grab and eat!

Japanese pubs serve up grilled skewers of all kinds: meats, hearts, kidneys and more! I will keep it straightforward with three different types, beginning with marinated chicken thigh!

I sliced a pound of chicken thighs lengthwise and put them into a container.

I grated two teaspoons of fresh ginger and added the following:

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup siren or rice wine vinegar

2 tablespoons sake

1 tablespoon brown sugar

2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed…combine and set aside to marinate for two hours…meanwhile, time to make our next dish – with a fun surprise!

Take a look:

Yes, this fresh squid from the terrific West Los Angeles Najiya Japanese market, was big and beefy, all the better to grill!

I used these massive tails, carefully cutting off the cartilage, which I’d rather tackle now than after cooking.

For this dish, I let the Squid marinate in some olive oil, lemon and two tablespoons of grated ginger…put it all together in a container and refrigerate…while they marinate, let’s make the sauce for the squid:

A Garlic Butter Sauce!

As you can see, I crushed garlic into a saucepan…it’s all up to you, but I love garlic and used ten cloves!

I added four tablespoons of butter and softly simmered them for ten minutes, stirring to avoid anything burning – then I added two diced celery stalks, and cooked for a few minutes.

At this point, just set it aside and now, it’s time to make more “chopstick food”:, in this case some fun fish cakes and fish balls…

These are store bought from Fujiya, and you simply sear them in a frying pan until the outsides are toasty and golden…

I do these ahead of time and let them sit in a warm pan – because the last part of this feast comes together quickly. You see, it’s time to skewer some meat!

It’s perhaps the easiest food prep of all time – take a look:

Light your grill and let it get nice and hot…

Time to take your meat and make some skewers to grill…I used sliced Wagyu!

Thread the strips of Wagyu beef on bamboo skewers…no need to add anything to these flavor bombs, the heavy fat marbling will provide plenty…you can salt and pepper if you want…

Grab Your Thighs!

I grabbed the marinating chicken thighs from the refrigerator and. skewered them as well…

You can see that the chicken thighs glisten with the marinate..and next up was the squid:

As you can see, these tentacles were so long that I chose to skewer them across the body of the squid and let the tentacles hang free…

Those are my three different skewers…I put the chicken on first, greasing the rack first to help avoid sticking….I cooked one side for 7-10 minutes and flipped them – now time to add the rest.

Wagyu goes on next, followed by the squid – these cook very quickly: the beef because it’s very thin, the squid because – well, it’s squid and that’s what they do!

Literally 3-4 minutes on each side was all that was needed for the meat and seafood. Take them all off at the same time, and slide your Wagyu and Chicken off the sticks for easier eating.

As for the squid, slide those tentacles into a bowl and pour the celery butter ginger sauce over the top!

Grilled Squid With Celery Ginger Sauce!

Here’s the dish, which has the smoky chewy goodness of grilled Squid and a beautiful ginger lemon sauce to give a smooth pop to the flavors….lay out your meats and fish cakes on a dish next to it, grab some chopsticks and dig in!

On the upper right of the plate I put some steamed potstickers as well, but the meat, chicken, fish cakes and fish balls and Squid with celery were all hot, tasty, and easy to eat with some cold Asahi beer and Sake as well!

I love Japanese pub food like this:

It may not be easy to pronounce, but it’s worth trying!

I make “oh-ko-no-me-yaki” at home and you can too – here’s the recipe!

Now, back to Tokyo: when we were there, we ate at a restaurant where the Chefs also performed songs like this:

What a great performance and food too!

See our meal here:

When my wife Alex, son Jeff and I were in Tokyo we ate all kinds of wild food, like sushi for breakfast!

Since we ate there – and yes, the sushi bars surrounding Tokyo’s famous Tsukiji Fish Market served sushi at 6a – the market moved a bit further away from the city center – but it still exists so go see it!

Here is an inside look at the iconic market that was:

A bit more food and fun from Tokyo, you see my son befriends a Musician who worked in a bar and he played an original song for us!

This “Golden Gai” entertainment area is so much fun – see why by clicking on my story here!

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Categories: Alcohol And Bars, Bite Eat Swallow, Bite! Eat! Repeat!, Cookbooks, Eat This!, Fast Food, Food, Food Travel, Recipes, Travel, Wacky Food, World's Wildest Food

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