Yakitori Brochette Kagurazaka

This small restaurant serves delicious charcoal-grilled yakitori. There are a lot of yakitori places. This one charmed us because of the wonderful charcoal taste that the chicken has, and also because of the abundant, friendly, helpful staff. The menu is trilingual: Japanese, French, and (almost) E...nglish (example: “Howaito asupara” = white asparagus). The staff do well in Japanese and French; we didn’t try their English. Each table has order slips (trilingual). You write down how many of each item that you want, and give the slip to one of the staff. That’s all there is to it. The place is not noisy, and not smoky. We had no problem chatting in a normal tone of voice. The staff were very attentive. Whenever we wanted anything, they were immediately there to help us with it. We five showed up at around 7 p.m. on a Saturday night and got a table without a reservation. Later in the evening, the restaurant was nearly full, so probably a reservation would be a good idea. Table seating is available for 15 people or therabouts; there are also counter seats. We had as many sticks (brochettes) of yakitori as we could eat, an interesting tofu salad, and 2 bottles of wine. The bill was around 5,000 yen per person. The menu says that they also have yakitori duck. Sounds great, but by the time we noticed it, we were too full to try it. The restaurant is a short distance off the main street that goes through Kagurazaka, closer to the Waseda-side exit from the Tozai Kagurazaka station (Exit 1) than it is to the Iidabashi-side exit. As you leave Exit 1 from the Tozai line Kagurazaka station, turn left and walk down the hill. Look for the Family Mart convenience store on your right. Directly opposite that is a narrow street. Turn left into that street. The restaurant is on the left side of that street, before you get to the next cross street.

Visited August 2018