Tongues lolling, throats parched, energy levels flagging, taste buds shriveled . . . When the summer heat sets in, nobody feels like hefty meals. It's the time of year when you have to coax your appetite into action. This is the season for grazing.
Fortunately, Tokyo is well endowed with places expressly designed to do this -- places where you can chill out in style, cradling a glass and nibbling on choice tidbits. One of our current favorites is Galali.
In terms of genre, it neatly straddles the divide between the traditional izakaya and its modern, Westernized equivalent, the dining bar (or, as it's too often misnomered, "dinning bar"). The look at Galali is chic and understated; the customers are young professionals drawn from the Aoyama/Harajuku areas; and it stays open till the wee hours. But the architecture and menu are unmistakably Japanese.