A note on the words: an izakaya is a Japanese pub. Yakiton is grilled pork offal on skewers, the pork cousin of yakitori, which is grilled chicken on skewers. Otoshi is the small appetizer you are charged for on arrival — not a scam, it is the cover charge. Senbero is drinking slang for getting thoroughly drunk on about a thousand yen. Basashi is raw horse meat served sashimi-style. Shirasu are tiny boiled whitebait. Shio-kombu is salted kelp cut into slivers, and motsu-ni is offal simmered slowly in a miso or soy broth. Ameyoko is the market street beside Ueno station.
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Yakiton Sankichi Ueno on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hello, this is Hangover Meshi. So this time, to the yakiton place in Ueno, “Yakiton Sankichi.” It is just about as soon as you step into Ameyoko. It is a fairly big place with second-floor seating and so on, so it feels like you can walk in without worrying! There are a huge number of yakitori and yakiton places around here, but being Ameyoko, every one of them is bursting with energy, or rather packed with people. Rather than “go to the place you want to go,” the closer description might be “go into whichever place you can actually get into!”
I will be having all sorts a la carte, centered on the yakiton!
This is the otoshi. You can choose the sauce from meat miso, spicy miso or shio-kombu; this one is the meat miso, I believe.
And unbelievably, refills are allowed. With the price of cabbage soaring, I was amazed they can pull that off.
Scallions, sesame oil, shirasu, sesame seeds. That is all it is, but it is seriously delicious.
I often make it at home too, and it is so good!
The color looks rather like chunks of tuna, but I am fairly sure this was basashi.
Quite a lean, delicate basashi. It seems like it would be perfectly fine without garlic or ginger. The sweet soy sauce works nicely, does it not.
And then the yakiton. I ordered more or less at random, and all of it was grilled fragrant and delicious!
The highball I had alongside was very much the thing. We pulled everything off the skewers and split it up by cut among us.
Yes, that was good.
I tend to think Ameyoko places are not for lingering in, so I often order the first few things plus whatever I really want to eat and then head straight out. The person seated next to us had ordered an absurdly huge mound of fries, and the quantity was staggering (probably not finishable), so with a big group it might be worth trying. Also, at the very end I heard that their motsu-ni is supposed to be good, so that is next time’s challenge. With the right number of people it looked like a good spot where you could aim for senbero too.
Yakiton Sankichi Ueno (Izakaya / Keisei-Ueno Station, Ueno-okachimachi Station, Ueno Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.0
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
