As much as I love eating out in restaurants that run the gamut from high class to low, from holes in the wall, to all-you-can-eat, my heart — or is it my stomach — sings most when I'm in a good, solid izakaya (Japanese pub).
Such places are anything but fussy, utterly friendly without being pretentious, and when the reality lives up to the potential of the menu, everything beyond the door, from fake news to North Korean nuclear arms, takes a back seat.
Chances are I would have stumbled on Shimme eventually. It's been around since 1934, and judging by the full houses every night, it's going to stay trucking on for some time. Naotaka Sakatani is the third-generation chef who ferries between the kitchen and the counter. His grandmother is also on duty, and has been there since Shimme's original inception as a sake shop — the name Shimme is taken from a bottle of sake.