NEWSWORTHY
Toridoki: Old-school yakitori near new Toyosu market
There are plenty of reasons to mourn the closure of Tsukiji's legendary wholesale market, and many more to bemoan its successor in Toyosu. Not least is the dearth of good, established restaurants out on that sterile landfill location. So it is comforting at least to ...
Toritama: Beak-to-tail yakitori washed down with top sake
There are only two fail-safe ways to get through a Tokyo heatwave summer. One is to head for the hills, or anywhere else the nights are cool. The other is to self-medicate. Sake does the trick perfectly, especially when matched with good yakitori. That ...
Ribatei: No pretension here, just satisfying yakitori
Ribatei might be located in a grittier part of Yokohama, but the yakitori third-generation owner-chef Tomotsugu Sakakibara serves is nothing to scoff at.
Torisee Takoyakushi: Kyoto yakitori shop a brazen ode to the bird
A few years ago I was warned off torisashi (chicken sashimi) by a friend who, after eating it on a night out in Osaka, spent the following week in a very bad way. So when a dish containing thin slices of raw chicken breast ...
Men Labo Hiro: Balanced ramen from a yakitori chef
Men Labo Hiro is far from your standard noodle counter. Squeaky clean both inside and out, with spacious tables by the door and enough room to squeeze in even a stroller or two, it feels more like a family restaurant than the type of ...
Sumiba Yakitori Enza: U.S. cinema meets grilled chicken
It's not quite cinema-dark inside Enza, but it's not far off. Indeed, the cinema connection is apposite: In many ways Enza is as much about yakitori as it is about icons of American cinema. Framed movie posters line the walls, but the best room in ...
Torikado: Elevating yakitori to an art form
Tokyo has no shortage of yakitori restaurants. They range from funky, smoky hole-in-the-wall grills to elegant emporia serving prime skewers of the finest fowl. But there's nowhere quite like Torikado. At the bottom of an anonymous flight of stairs, you push through a heavy wooden ...
Yakitori Imai: A new grill pairs tradition with ambience
What better way to mark the start of this new lunar year than with yakitori? It's the Year of the Fire Rooster, so that calls for some good skewers — prime jidori chicken, of course, carefully prepared over proper charcoal. At Yakitori Imai that's ...
Yakitori Ogawa: Traditional 'yakitori' served like high-end sushi
There's no mistaking the kind of cuisine offered at Yakitori Ogawa. All 15 seats in this compact, one-counter grill look directly onto the open kitchen where skewers of premium poultry are slowly, carefully tended to over glowing charcoal. Both the look and the location are ...
Ranjatai: Inventive yakitori in the backstreets of Jinbocho
Chicken and charcoal are a classic combination: Morsels of meat carefully skewered and cooked over glowing coals until they're tender, juicy and golden brown. Good yakitori is always a pleasure. At its very best it's worth crossing the city for. And Ranjatai's certainly belongs ...
How yakitori went from taboo to salaryman snack
The grilled chicken skewers known as yakitori are good at any time of the year, but they go especially well with ice-cold beer. They also have an excellent chance of becoming the next big Japanese culinary hit worldwide — after sushi and ramen. Like a ...
Chicken one day doesn't mean feathers on the next
Hisako and Ryoichi Maeda (66 and 67) are the proprietors of Torisue, a tiny take-out-only yakitori shop in the Bontan area of Tokyo's Koto Ward, just a short walk from Monzen-Nakacho Station. Torisue is famous as a B-kyu (B-grade) gourmet favorite and fans from ...
