Yakitori

3 photos · 2023

3 photographs tagged Yakitori, 2023.

Japanese yakitori grill restaurant with charcoal and skewered food cooking over open flame at night. — Yakitori vendors like this one grill skewered chicken over binchotan, a white charcoal prized in Japan for burning hot and clean with little smoke or odor. The charcoal is made from ubame oak, slow-fired in a kiln process that can take over a week to complete. Stalls of this kind are common fixtures in izakaya districts and covered arcades, where cooks work from narrow street-facing counters just large enough for a grill, a fan to manage the coals, and space for a handful of customers. The paper sign taped to the glass is a handwritten notice, a common substitute for printed menus at small, family-run operations.

Customers order food at a small Japanese street food stall decorated with yellow lanterns at night. — Omoide Yokocho sits just west of Shinjuku Station, tucked beneath the rail tracks in a lattice of alleys barely wide enough for two people to pass. The lane took shape in the black-market years after World War II and later earned the nickname "Shomben Yokocho," or Piss Alley, for its rough-and-ready postwar reputation. A fire in 1999 destroyed much of the block, and the alley was rebuilt while keeping its original scale and layout. Today it holds roughly sixty tiny stalls, many seating fewer than ten people, serving yakitori, motsuyaki, and other grilled skewers to office workers and travelers alike. Ikkakuya, marked here by its paper lanterns, is one of the counter-style shops that keep the alley's postwar character intact.

Nighttime street festival in Japan with illuminated lanterns, vendor stalls, and crowds of pedestrians. — Omoide Yokocho runs in a narrow strip near Shinjuku Station's west exit, its lanes barely wide enough for two people to pass. The name translates to "Memory Lane," though longtime regulars still call it by its older, cruder nickname referencing the black-market yakitori stalls that first opened here after World War II. Fewer than a hundred tiny bars and grills operate along these alleys today, most seating no more than six to eight customers at a counter. A fire in 1999 destroyed a section of the district, but owners rebuilt to the same footprint and scale rather than modernize. Paper lanterns marked with shop names hang low over the walkway, a fixture of the alley since its postwar start.

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