Yesterday’s featured “soba” local family restaurant serves only lunch but has meal delivery service. Today join me in exploring a neighborhood “izakaya” where they serve lunch & dinner and customers can sit on tatami mats or by the counter table. “Izakaya” is an informal Japanese “gastropub” where they offer multiple rounds of small dishes and snacks and “sake” (alcoholic drinks). I don’t drink any alcohol nor softdrinks but it’s good to “eat & stay” longer in “izakaya” as I get to know more the locals and network with different company owners/bosses (shacho) and people from different walks of life.

Tenchan Izakaya is famous for fresh Hokkaido seafoods! It serves as my extended dining room as I love anything with fish & seashells; great to overcome my childhood food allergies. 

They serve very delicious and inexpensive meal sets that I regularly eat my lunch here before I put up Olives, Inc. in 2014. As I get busier these days, I can just afford to stay long in this very unique informal eatery in rare occasions.

Great to establish relationship with the owner and staff while munching their well-prepared 7 dishes on a wooden tray. Not bad to shell out ¥ 750 per “teishoku” (meal set) for complete nutrients needed by our body.

They proudly share stories of Hokkaido fresh catch and the ceramics used in the restautants. You’ll fell in love with the beautifully designed saucers, plates and cups made by the chef’s mom based in Hokkaido!

If you’d like to learn Japanese food culture and with limited funds to travel to Hokkaido, come & visit this local bar/pub located at 4-60-43 Kashiwacho, Tachikawa City (Phone #: 042-538-7047). It’s about 3 minutes walk from Tamagawajosui Station.

There was a time the whole place was reserved for “bonenkai” (Year-end Party) by schoolteachers from a different city. I didn’t know about the event and I just popped in but well-received by the chef & staff and introduced me to the customers. Right there & then, I mingled with the “unknown locals” but more than realized the bond I established with the eatery owner that he’s just happy to introduce me to other people.

It’s sometimes hilarious to listen to the played English music in this pub as they’re popular tunes in the 1960s to 1970s — pre-Queen band years that reflect the age of the chef and his fave rock music. Good to be “gaijin” (foreigner) enjoying the local resto but not necessarily the chef’s music taste.