A note on the words: motsu nikomi is offal stewed slowly in a seasoned broth, a standard of the cheap drinking house. Daikon is the long white radish, otoshi is the small dish that arrives unasked at the start of a meal, and an izakaya is a place built for drinking with food ordered a plate at a time.
Sakagura Riki, Ikebukuro West Exit on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Drinkers, thank you for waiting. It is Hangover Meshi time.
Right, we are drinking in Ikebukuro. This time I headed for a place by the west exit with a sign so bright it catches the eye:
Beef and pork. Offal wholesaler. Direct from the wholesaler. The original. Sakagura. Riki.
An izakaya with a great deal of presence. It draws you in.
Inside, and up to the third floor. Perhaps the whole building is theirs? Enormous capacity.
First of all, nothing begins until this has been drunk. In this humidity it tastes even better.
It arrives in a black bowl heaped with fine-shredded and chopped spring onion. Motsu nikomi is Sakagura Riki’s signature dish. In a pale, slightly cloudy liquor, well-stewed offal and thoroughly simmered daikon come into view. Put your chopsticks into the offal and it falls apart softly; there is almost no unpleasant smell. The more you chew, the more the sweetness of the fat and its savour seep out. The daikon has drunk up the liquor and collapses softly in the mouth. The broth itself is mellow without being heavy, with the savour of the offal dissolved into it — enough to make you want to drink it to the bottom. Yes, this is good.
I wanted something lighter, so: grilled spring onion. Long onion with a good char on it, and it looks it. Inside that charcoal-scented surface the onion is cooked through and meltingly soft. Bite in and sweet juice floods out. Dip it in the red miso paste alongside and sweetness and depth come together — simple, but good.
The bean sprouts have a brisk, satisfying crunch, and the sweet-salty sauce, toasted sesame and the prickle of black pepper keep you going back. The green scent of the garlic chives tangled through it, and the colour of the carrot, are good notes too. And the liver, the star of the dish, is a little different. Not sliced thin but cut in cubes — blocks of liver. Perhaps it has been fried once first. A new texture, and good. It keeps a plump springiness while staying moist inside. No off-smell, and biting in releases a deep richness and the savour of iron.
Cartilage on skewers, arriving with a good char on it. Bite in and first comes a light, crisp, crunching resistance. As a fan of the cartilage from a chicken breastbone, I love the texture of pork cartilage too. The meat and fat around it are fragrant, and the savour seeps out as you chew. The seasoning is a plain salt, so a dab of the red miso paste alongside adds depth and sweetness, and the drink goes down fast.
That was enough to eat with, and after this came a highball festival. The bill came to about 9,000 yen for two. If we only ate about 2,000 yen of food, that means we drank 7,000 yen worth. At roughly 450 yen a glass, that is about seven each.
Ah, I should not have worked that out.
May you meet something good to eat today too.
Sakagura Riki, Ikebukuro West Exit (izakaya / Ikebukuro Station, Higashi-Ikebukuro Station, Toden-Zoshigaya Station)
Tabelog evening rating ★★★☆☆ 3.4
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
