Flavor Boulevard

Izakayas in the Bay Area mostly target customers with a lot of money to spare (looking right at you, Ippuku!). Although there are merits to that (it costs to support local business and ethical ways of raising animals), a meal at these places is just not the same as sitting in a small neighborhood izakaya, talking to the chef who’s cooking 5 feet away from you, smelling the smoke from both the food and the tobacco of the nearby customer (who you may know by name), and inhaling your food, which comes in big bowls, to your heart’s content. I love neighborhood izakayas in Tokyo.

Sai is one of them. This place jumps to mind when I think of izakayas nowadays. One big reason is that when I had a homestay in Japan, my host family took me there one night and it was a perfect family experience. If I had discovered the place myself (which I’m not sure is possible), I wouldn’t know what to order (the menu is 90% kanji @_@), I wouldn’t have had two parental figures to share the meal with (traveling alone makes you want to spend time with your parents more, doesn’t it?), nobody would have introduced me to the chef, and the chef wouldn’t have encouragingly complimented my mediocre Japanese.

Another reason is that Sai has crazy good comfort foods, one of which is the chef’s homemade pizza.

The salad with tomato, ham, cheese and a special dressing:

(Koichi san, my host dad, told me that at izakayas, you have to order a drink (non-alcoholic is okay), ordering water is rude because water is free and izakayas are drinking establishments. Hence the orange juice for me…)

And the bubbling hot seafood soup with a cute big shrimp:

The soup is reddened with tomato, not chili pepper, which makes it fully enjoyable for cat-tongue people like me and perfect for all weather.

I don’t know what these dishes are called in Japanese (my best bet is the pizza, but there are different types), and no way am I going to read that kanji-full menu in a tolerable amount of time before the chef thinks I’m just there to read the menu (T__T). When I come back to Sai, they won’t be the same dishes, but as long as the chef is the same, a hearty feast is guaranteed.

Address: Sai (彩)
About 0.5 mile south of Kameari station (Katsushika), in 2 Chome, near Welcia Katsushika Kameari Shop