A note on the words: this is a tachinomi, a standing bar — no seats out front, you drink at a shelf. An otoshi is the small dish that arrives without being ordered and appears on the bill as a cover charge.
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Sake Pachi Pachi on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hangover Meshi here. This time, Nakano, which I do not often set foot in. I had gone out meaning to drink my way around a bit, and while I was wandering it started to spit with rain — so I ducked under the eaves of the nearest standing bar. There are seats inside as well, but the standing area out front is the nicer place to be. (It was raining, mind.)
Plenty on the menu, so I had a light bite while I waited out the rain.
A very smart lemon sour — shochu, soda and lemon, dry rather than sweet. Very good.
And here is the otoshi, the small dish that arrives unordered and appears on the bill as a cover charge: grated daikon with mentaiko, spicy cod roe. An unbeatable combination. This is exactly what an otoshi should be.
Octopus. It has been expensive lately, so it catches the eye.
This is the simmered one — not falling-apart soft, but cooked lightly so it keeps some resistance, and there is real substance to it. The tsume glaze is properly sweet and works beautifully with the octopus. The sweet-savoury simmered character comes through well.
And this is raw octopus with garlic oil.
Garlic heated in olive oil until it is crisp, then poured all over sashimi of raw octopus.
The good garlic-oil aroma and the way the octopus tightens up under the heat work very well together. The mix of cooked edges and raw centre is delicious.
980 yen for this is quite the bargain.
Shime-saba (vinegar-cured mackerel), sea bream, bluefin tuna, simmered octopus, amberjack and more. Proper sashimi, and the right size to pick at. As izakaya sashimi goes, I thought the quality was well above average.
The house speciality, apparently.
Motsu-ni — offal simmered in miso — heaped up to overflow the bowl. The block of tofu is enormous too, so it has real visual impact.
The flavour has soaked right through and the salt is kept slightly in check. Even so, the richness and the miso aroma are excellent, and the offal is plump and generously cut. This deserves to be called a speciality. Very good.
Sake Pachi Pachi menu
Menu
Lightly simmered so it keeps its bite. Sweet tsume glaze.
Crisp garlic poured over sashimi of raw octopus.
Shime-saba, sea bream, bluefin tuna, simmered octopus, amberjack and others.
The house speciality. A bowlful of offal and a large block of tofu.
The dry sort, not sweet.
Grated daikon with mentaiko, spicy cod roe.
* As of my visit in December 2024. Please check current prices at the shop.
I had meant to have one quick drink in the standing area out front, but the snacks are all under 1,000 yen and all good, so I kept ordering. The prices work whether this is your first stop of the night or your last.
By the time I had worked through all that the rain had stopped, so I left. It is the sort of place you drop into briefly — but the food is good enough that you end up ordering properly anyway. Nakano is rather good, isn’t it. I wonder whether places like this are lying around everywhere here. Good value, and recommended.
Sake Pachi Pachi (standing bar / Nakano Station, Araiyakushi-mae Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★☆☆ 3.4
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
