| It was a Sunday night and I was trying to think of a place
to go for dinner with my friend Natsuko. I thought I'd take her to Star Kebab House
so we went over there but it was closed. I called a friend that lived in the area and he recommended we check
out Kushiya Monogatari, a Kushiage place. Neither of us had had kushiage in a
while so we thought we'd give it a try.
Kushiage is directly translated, skewered fried stuff. Kushi
means skewered, age (ah-gay) means fried.
The difference for this place is that you do it yourself.
Similar to how a Korean BBQ place or as the Japanese call it, yakiniku,
has a grill in the center of each table to cook your meats, this place had
a deep fat fryer in the center of each table.
It was an all you can eat place so you go over to the food area and
they had about 20 kinds of things on sticks. Different beefs, porks
and chickens, shrimp and various veggies. You'd bring them back to
your table, dip them in the batter, bread them and drop them in the
fryer. They take about 2 or 3 minutes to cook.
Then you dip them in one of the 5 or 6 sauces they had and eatem
up!
I don't think they could do something like this in the states. Too
much liability when some kid puts their hand in the fryer or pours their
drink in it but here in Japan they haven't gone litigation crazy and
people are still expected to be responsible for themselves most of the
time.
It was pretty fun and I'd definitely go there again. It was
relatively cheap too. 2500 yen for all you can eat. They also
had a salad bar, other foods like french fries (already cooked), gyoza,
oden, rice and they had a dessert bar.
If you want to check it out the one I went to is in Akasaka. It's
right outside the station across the street from Starbucks and Tilly's on
the B2 floor. |
