Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
bar in the thick of Ueno. Key ingredients include a fine
range of beers, good food, a nightly happy hour (5-7pm),
live bands and, last but not least, “Ladies Night” on
Thursdays (cocktails ¥500 for female customers).
Mon-Fri
5pm-midnight, Fri & Sat until 5am.
Ichimon
Ұจ
3-12-6 Asakusa, Taitō-ku
T
03 3875
6800; Tawaramachi station; map p.70.
Traditional
izakaya
with a cosy atmosphere, specializing in various
types of sake and dishes made with a range of unusual
meats, including ostrich, turtle, crocodile and (ethics alert)
whale. Payment is by wooden tokens which you purchase
on entering.
Tues-Sun 3pm-2am.
Ì
Kamiya
ਆ୩
1-1-1 Asakusa, Taitō-ku
T
03 3841
5400; Asakusa station; map p.70.
Established in 1880,
this was Tokyo's first Western-style bar. It's famous for its
Denki Bran (“electric brandy” - a mix of gin, wine, Curaçao
and brandy), invented in 1883. It's a potent tipple, though
they also make a “weaker” version at 15-percent alcohol.
The ground floor is the liveliest and most informal; pay
for your first round of food and drinks at the cash desk as
you enter.
Daily except Tues 11.30am-9.30pm.
ASAKUSA
Bar Six
όʔ̒
6F 2-34-3 Asakusa, Taitō-ku
T
03 5806
5106; Asakusa station; map p.70.
Sophisticated watering
hole on the sixth floor of the Amuse Museum complex
(see p.71). The Asakusa views are amazing, especially of
Sensō-ji, which is illuminated at night. A standing-only
outdoor terrace surrounds the bar.
Tues-Sun 6pm-2am.
Cuzn
Χζϯ
3F Nakaden Building, 1-2-6 Hanakawado,
Taitō-ku
T
03 3842 3899; Asakusa station; map p.70.
This friendly bar has a comfy sofa area, free internet
access and sometimes shows football games on its big
screen. The food's not bad, either, and the same goes for
the coffee.
Daily noon-11pm.
Ì
Gin Maku Roku
ۜນϩοΫ
2F 1-41-5 Asakusa
T
03 5828 6969; Asakusa or Tawaramachi stations;
map p.70.
The Asakusa spirit is alive and kicking in this
intimate, backstreet bar full of colourful characters and
festooned with homely bric-a-brac. A stage is squeezed
in for the occasional gig (around ¥1000), which could
feature anything from owner Hoshyou's rockabilly band
(he plays double bass), to Balkan gypsy music.
Daily
9pm-5am.
RYŌGOKU AND KIYOSUMI
Popeye
ϙύΠ
2-18-7 Ryōgoku, Sumida-ku
T
03 3633
2120,
W
40beersontap.com; map p.77. Ryōgoku
station.
Beer lovers should cross the Sumida-gawa to
discover this busy Western-style sit-down pub, which has
the largest number of beers on tap in Japan - over 70,
despite their website's name, and most of them hard-to-
find microbrews. The food, mostly typical
izakaya
side
dishes, includes surprises like beer-simmered meat or
raw emu. For ¥3000 you can sample ten small glasses of
different ales.
Mon-Sat 11.30am-11.30pm.
16
SAKE AND SHŌCHŪ
It's said that Japan's ancient deities brewed
sake
from the first rice of the new year. Over ten
thousand different brands of the clean-tasting rice wine (also known as
nihonshu
) are now
produced across Japan by some two thousand breweries.
Sake primarily comes in sweet (
amakuchi
) and dry (
karakuchi
) varieties. Some types are
cloudier and less refined than others, while a few are aged. If you're after the best quality,
take a look at bottles labelled
ginjō-zukuri
(or
ginjō-zō
), the most expensive and rare of the
junmai-shu
pure rice sake.
In restaurants and
izakaya
you'll have the choice of drinking sake warm (
atsukan
), with water
(
mizu
), iced (
rokku
), or cold (
reishu
). Drinking it cold will enable you to properly taste the wine's
complex flavours; you should never drink premium sake warm. Warm sake is always served in a
small flask (
tokkuri
), but cold sake is sometimes poured directly from a large bottle into a small
wooden box (
masu
), with a smidgen of salt on the rim to counter the slightly sweet taste. Glasses
are traditionally filled right to the brim and often placed on a saucer to catch any overflow; they're
generally small because, with an alcohol content of fifteen percent or more, sake is a strong drink
- note that it goes to your head even more quickly if drunk warm. For more on sake, check out the
books and informative website (
W
sake-world.com) of long-time resident expert John Gautner.
Shōchū
is another clear spirit that is generally a little cheaper than sake and often with a
higher alcoholic content - with an alcohol content of anything from twenty to fifty percent,
it's no surprise that some call it “white lightning”. Served in the same variety of ways as sake,
it can be made from many different ingredients, all with their own particular taste: ask your
bartender for sweet potato (
imo
), brown sugar (
kurozatō
), rice (
kome
), barley (
mugi
), or the
nettle-like perilla leaf (
shiso
). The best is said to come from Kagoshima and Miyazaki
prefectures, both in the far south of Japan on the island of
Kyūshū
; non-purists mix it with
lemon sour, or even oolong tea.
