We set off at a fair clip for the area in question, and, once the rendezvous had been made, plunged into the make of back alleys and side streets that make up the downtown eating and drinking quarter. Arriving at a small, almost inconspicuous Chinese restaurant, Diamond Chef looked after the ordering while the rest of us directed our attention to beer, which, fortunately, was available in Dynamo-sized glasses.
What followed was a range of dishes from appetisers to spare ribs, all of which were excellent and included the without-a-doubt-best lemon chicken I’ve had in a long time (actually the only lemon chicken I’ve had this century but much better than any version I’d encountered previously). Interestingly, when the first platter of appetisers arrived and I’d had the presence of jellyfish pointed out to me, once I’d sampled one of the surprisingly-crunchy little morsels no one else seemed inclined to partake in any of the remaining supply.
I’ll be happy to avoid the jellyfish in future but another item on the same platter, an excellent pickled cucumber was easily the best preparation of that particular vegetable I’ve ever encountered.
Once dinner was out of the way, it was back into the side streets and back alleys on the way to Piccolo, an interesting little bar that had been described as somewhere I would love.
The only identification in an obscure back lane-way is a single illuminated sign. A narrow staircase with a U-turn midway leads to an ultra-small cramped area with seats for no more than a dozen drinkers and a total capacity of about twenty.
There’s almost as much room behind the bar as there is on the drinkers’ side, but I guess that amount of space is needed to provide access to the shelves of genuine vinyl LPs which the bartender, an obvious survivor of a late-60s or early 70s time warp, will play on request.
My request for something from Little Feat produced copies of Dixie Chicken and The Last Record Album and we even managed to get a couple of tracks before the Feat was superseded by other requests.
After we were well and truly settled in, having miraculously scored four seats at the bar, Diamond Chef and Drinker Dude were keen to learn my rating of the place.
My response?
I came all the way from Australia to drink at this bar.
Which was, more or less, true.
We managed to drink and talk till well after eleven, by which time the last shuttle bus back to the hotel had well and truly left, so we were forced to catch a cab back so we could crash for the last time on this venture onto Japanese soil.