A note on the words: izakaya is a Japanese pub. Motsu nikomi is offal simmered slowly, usually in miso or soy. Yakitori is chicken grilled on skewers, ordered by the piece. Shichimi is the seven-spice chili blend. Happoshu is the low-malt, cheaper cousin of beer, taxed at a lower rate in Japan. Prices are as of this writing (August 2026).
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Daitokai on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
I want something good to eat today too. This is Hangover Meshi. Drinking! From the morning! Meeting in Ikebukuro and wondering whether anywhere lets you drink that early, I went to Daitokai, a 24-hour izakaya near the station. Standing outside it I remembered — ah, I have seen this place. But this is the first time going in. You descend into a basement, and the local feel of it is wonderful.
There is a fair amount on offer, so I decided to have a drink first and think it over.
Right, I thought I would order a beer — and immediately the difficulty is high.
Beer is self-service. There is a beer vending machine. Doing it for the first time takes some getting used to. You take your own mug out of the fridge. Then you set the glass in place and put in 300 yen. There seems to be a machine for draft beer at 300 yen and one for happoshu at 250 yen. The one at the back of the shop was the 300 yen kind. How interesting.
The first glass pours cleanly because the mug is cold, but from the second on — the mug having warmed up, presumably — the foam mostly overflows. Which is part of the fun. If small pieces of self-service like this are what keeps the price down, I am glad of them. A beer for 300 yen. Far too cheap.
For food you buy a meal ticket here and hand it in at the counter.
Well, the foundation of drinking snacks is motsu nikomi, is it not. It is cold outside, too.
It looks like a light sort of nikomi, but it is firmly seasoned and good. Generous for 400 yen.
Yakitori, thigh. Grilled to a good judgment as well, and delicious. This is exactly what you want from a cheap izakaya. The shichimi coming in its own little sachet is another good touch. It has character.
It being morning, I could hardly eat a great deal — so these two dishes, about four beers, and that was that.
Daitokai, entered for the first time. Busy, despite the hour. There is evidently a reasonable demand for morning drinking. If the thought is “drink cheaply, from the morning, in Ikebukuro”, then Daitokai is very much recommended. It is not a place for lingering, so a quick drink and a quick exit is probably the right style. I shall be using it now and then.
Daitokai (Izakaya / Ikebukuro Station, Higashi-Ikebukuro Station, Toden-zoshigaya Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.4
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
