Koujiya Yakiniku – Japanese Fast Food

Believe it or not, but Japanese is as famous for its fast food as is the USA. Sushi, poot noodles and gyudon are all quick easy-to-eat fast food versions of more time consuming and serious dishes and are – I believe – quite famous around the world. Their slow-food counterparts would be sashimi, ramen and sukiyaki. Another one, maybe not as famous abroad, is the simple and quite generic yakiniku, or grilled meats that are available from street vendors or small whole in the wall shops basically around every single station in in Tokyo and probably most of Japan as well. You pick what kind of meats you want and the staff will grill them up for you while you wait. There’s usually two choices when it comes to seasoning, shio or tare. Shio is basically a clear salt sauce and tare is a soy based barbecue sauce. For some reasons foreigners tend to always go for the tare while Japanese are more likely to pick ship, at least in my limited experience. I usually don’t eat a lot of meat, especially not in the summer but when I passed this little yakinikuya in Ota Ward’s Koujiya (大田区糀谷) I had to try a few. You can see from their menu what they offer and how much it is. I had liver, chicken-onion and pig tongue. Delicious!

Kaederen – Koujiya Awaodori

This incredibly handsome little man was the star of last night’s Ota Ward Koujiya Awaodori Festival. Two hours of non-stop dancing, all the time with this incredible concentration. Well done Kaederen!