Joshua V.
Google
T'was a soggy and snowy Monday evening... the night after Valentine's Day to be exact. Plans to come here this very night had been made in the weeks previous, and the weather seemed hardly the exigency for us to jettison this night's arrangements in lieu of either 1) a rain check or 2) perhaps even something a little more domestic. Upon arrival, myself and my dinner companion for the night noticed that we effectively had the entire place to ourselves; we were seated in (what I assume to be a place of honor) the small nook by the window... we were able to watch the snowflakes fall, and either disintegrate into oblivion upon touching the fiery hot lights adorning this place... or watch them form and amalgamate into something greater than itself (kinda like Voltron) upon joinder with their fellow snowflakes.
The interior brought about pangs of nostalgia for time spent (once upon a time) in the Land of the Rising Sun (i.e. Nihon, Nippon, Japan). Basically, the dining room was a textbook utilitarian clinic on how to get maximum mileage out of minimum space (it doesn't hurt that AZNs are typically smaller framed, donged, titted, bootied, and bellied compared to compadres hailing from other more western parts of the globe... and I still think we look damn good... hell, maybe even better). The Japanese homeland would have been proud, and this space would fit in perfectly as an izakaya/sobya/ramenya or any other kind of "-ya" ("shop" and or "food kiosk/vendor space"... in the Japanese... depending on contextual placement) in the cramped byways of Neo-Tokyo.
The makeshift (in appearance) menu, on plain white paper, with legible but not impeccable handwritten print, and finished off with a laminated coating, was certainly an eye-opening and risky initial gambit; at any rate, it was one that, both myself and my dinner companion for the evening, found quite charming. Besides, appearances aren't everything (90% of the battle for sure, but not errthang). That being said, the menu items, in retrospect, seemed to be pleasantly out of place when viewed in tandem/relation with the no-frills interior and bare-bones menu (as far as cosmetics are concerned, anyway...) of this spot.
Sure, some izakaya staples were seen prominently mentioned on the menu (i.e. takoyaki (battered octo balls), deep fried "ika" (squid), yakisoba (pan fried noodles), and karaage chicken... to name a few; (un)fortunately, yours truly couldn't even venture a sample of most of these enumerated items, as the current temporal placement on the Liturgical calendar "requires" of me to make certain forbearance as to my lifestyle... thusly, consumption of certain products (booze, junk food, fried food), usage of certain applications (IG, FB, Twitter, Snapchat, and some of Yelp's more "social" aspects), and the oblation of some other particular activities that make me happy (at least in the short term) have been eliminated from my daily regimen (if only until the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior... uncomfortable yet?!?). Have no fear, yours truly should be back to his (relatively) debauched self come March 27th of 2016 A.D.
So what did we eat? Certainly dishes that, as far as visual presentation is concerned, would be expected to be served at a classic sushi bar. With that in mind, we sampled and shared three dishes, two seemingly more "classic" offerings, and one more avant garde and fusion in nature.
All in all, this place was quite a delightful find. And I need to give daps to the wayy out of place song selection (which would go terrifically as a soundtrack to the recently released "Deadpool"); lots of Queen (back to back songs?! I ain't complaining), some Journey, and the dude who sang the soundtrack for "Karate Kid"?!?!? Huge fan of such a weird song selection, and I'm even more a fan of this (kinda) weird place. I'll definitely be back, maybe a return visit is in order when the weather gets better...
