A note on the words: otoshi is a small appetizer you’re charged for automatically — it’s the cover charge, not a scam. Oyadori is meat from a mature laying hen, with a firmer bite than younger chicken. Yakitori are skewers of grilled chicken, and Bunzo-yaki is this restaurant’s own name for its spiced, tandoori-style chicken thigh. Shima-hokke is a type of hokke, a grilled fish common in izakaya cooking. Motsu nikomi is a long-simmered stew of offal, and ponzu is a citrus-based soy sauce.
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Kajiya Bunzo on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
It is Hangover Meshi time. This time I had an errand in Hamamatsucho, and thought I would get some food while I was there, so I drifted around the area. This part of town has become awfully smart, has it not! To think it would end up lined with buildings like these. So I went into one of them, Tokyo Port City. Inside there is a little restaurant lane, a whole alley of places, and plenty of them looked good — but this time I decided to go into “Kajiya Bunzo”!
On their way home from work, I imagine — there are a great many customers here in suits!
Plenty of large parties drinking together too, and they all look to be enjoying themselves!
The menu runs to quite a lot of items.
Since there is so much of it, I decided to order a la carte.
First, a beer! It has been quite a while since I had a draft ^^
And here is the otoshi. A richly simmered dish, and a perfect match for beer.
Not chicken skin but oyadori with ponzu. Having meat still on it makes it a little different, but it is finished firm, it has real chew to it, and it is quite good! With crisp raw onion and ponzu. A standard dish, but with a small twist that makes it interesting.
The eight-piece yakitori assortment!
This one is seriously delicious!!!
It is not tandoori chicken, but it is that sort of thing — a dry, spicy chicken thigh. Almost tandoori chicken, really, yet with something a little Japanese about it as well, which makes it feel new. The chicken falls apart, and it is wonderful. It goes with a drink, too, so this one is a real hit. It comes with cabbage, the idea being that you eat the two together, and it does go with cabbage. This is an invention!!!
They were out of fried octopus, so I went for the fried squid legs instead. Quite a lot of them for 430 yen, which feels cheap to me.
Fried crisp and dry, and delicious.
And here is the house-special motsu nikomi. It is a rich braise, and
the flavor of the miso is clearly there, and yet it also carries something of the air of a Western-style stew…
An interesting motsu nikomi. Easy to eat, and very good.
So, I worked my way through a fair range of things. The ordinary izakaya-quality items you find anywhere come at reasonable prices — and among them, the recommended dishes where they put their own stamp on things are properly delicious! That is what I like about it. It felt to me a cut above the ordinary izakaya, and I liked that very much ^^ Kajiya Bunzo has branches in a good many places, so if I spot one I will drop in again.
Kajiya Bunzo Tokyo Port City Takeshiba (Izakaya / Takeshiba Station, Hamamatsucho Station, Daimon Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★☆☆ 3.5
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
