Yakitori at Torimatsu, Kutchan, Japan

As we were on holiday, we weren't as well prepaid for this post. We had no decent camera (DSLR and G9) and in desperation had to use the Iphone 3G to capture the following photos. Please note that the restaurant had a dark ambience, thus the grainy and sometimes out-of-focus photos.

The place that we were recommended was a place that serves Skewers or what we called Yakitori. By definations, Yakitori means Chicken Skewers... Kushiyaki means non-poultry skewers.

The restaurant wasn't that big. They had an bench that would fit about 10 people surrounding the grilling area. At the back of us, and at the corner, they had some private area, which should be able to fit 10 people in each room.

Our host of the evening, spoke little or no english. Only a young girl was able to communicate with us in english. As usual, there was a english menu, and we were able to order from the list.

 

The first 3 skewers that we had ordered was juicy pork, pork stomach and pork skewer. We didn't realised that each order came with 3 skewers each (we were thinking of 1 each, 3 types!). We had a choice of the skewers being served with salt or tare sauce. Tare sauce is like sweet soya sauce. Please note that the juicy pork should be called fatty pork... as you can see from the images, it was mainly fat.

As we were strategically situated next to the grill, we were able to spy on what the other patrons were consuming. Most of the stuff they ate was predicatable.... just the meat skewers... so we took the chance to explore and question every item on the menu.

My CEO (Chief Eatery Officer) had decoded the japanese menu and decided to try supposely Hokkaido type Sausages. We ordered a pair and seated eagerly wondering what how special it would be... It sure smell great as they were grilling it.... The Hokkaido sausage tasted very similar to those chinese sausage that we could obtain from Pasar Malam in Malaysia. However it was very juicy and moist.... probably because it had plenty of pork lard in it.

Next we decided to order the Special of the day, which was grilled Scallops. When they were grilling our scallops, we realised that it was HUGE! Check the size of the shell when placed next to the skewers! It took the cook a really long time to grill our scallop.

While grilling, I asked my CFO "Darling, how much do you think the scallop would cost? I mean, it the biggests scallop I have ever seen in my life... and since it is the special of the day... it could be extremely expensive.... how?"

Finally the scallop was served. It was huge.... humongous. The scallop itself was about 2" in diameter. Definitely too big to eat with one bite. When you have your first bite, you would realised that it is not hard nor chewy, but soft. Very juicy and tasted very sweet. I realised that the scallop was grilled as it is, adding just a pinch of salt, while retaining its original juices and flavour... brilliant! How much was it you asked? Tell you later in the post...

As we couldn't find any vegetables on the menu, we decided to order and try some of their stir fried mushrooms. Both of them taste simple but delicious. It was stir fried with just butter and salt (I reckon).

So we had spent the last hour exploring the what this restaurant had to offer. Situated next to the grill made us smell like skewers ourselves. We asked for the bill and realised that the scallops weren't that expensive... Generally each skewer is about ¥300/each (3 skewers per set). The scallop had set us back only ¥600/each.... phewwww... reasonably priced.

A few notable things on the menu that we didn't get to try...

• Raw Horse
• Raw Whale
• Horse Tongue Sashimi
• Ostrich Sashimi