A note on the words: an izakaya is a Japanese pub, where you drink and order small plates as you go. Tako-san wiener are little red sausages cut at one end so the strips splay out into octopus legs when they fry — a lunchbox classic here, and the name just means “Mr. Octopus wiener.” Edamame are young soybeans boiled and salted in the pod. Hamukatsu is a slice of ham breaded and deep-fried, the cheap and cheerful cousin of the pork cutlet, tonkatsu. Champon is a noodle soup of pork and a heap of vegetables cooked together in a cloudy broth. Napolitan is spaghetti in ketchup sauce, and okonomiyaki is a savory cabbage pancake cooked on a griddle. A highball is whisky with soda.
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Manpuku Shokudo on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hey, this is Hangover Meshi. So this time it’s an oddly retro izakaya (Japanese pub) under the railway arches in Yurakucho, “Manpuku Shokudo.” I knew the place was there but had never once gone in, and I’d always been a little curious about it. This time it looked fairly quiet, so I decided to step inside. That exterior is really something.
There’s so much retro crammed in that it causes a traffic jam — it’s certainly retro, but the result is a strange sort of space.
Old-fashioned Napolitan — 1,100 yen
Hamukatsu lunch — 1,100 yen
Simmered beef tendon — 1,180 yen
Okonomiyaki — 1,080 yen
Ordering is the scan-a-QR-code-and-order-from-your-phone kind.
The outside is retro but the system inside is nicely high-tech, which I really like.
A highball first, of course, and then I ordered whatever caught my eye, one dish after another.
Tako-san wiener! It feels like a very long time since I last saw these red sausages. They’re properly octopus-shaped and so cute! There’s a bit of cabbage and mayonnaise alongside, so they work perfectly as a drinking snack. Plump from the fryer and tasty ^^
And then the standard edamame. Well, it’s the sort of thing you want to order and have sitting there from the start, isn’t it. Properly salted — good.
And then the hamukatsu I couldn’t help ordering. Hamukatsu really does feel like the strongest drinking snack there is! Easier to order than tonkatsu, and very good. 480 yen for one piece. That’s not bad at all, is it. The little pot of sauce and the careful way the mustard is set out, too. Nothing about it feels slapdash, which makes a very good impression. And it’s crisply fried — delicious!
And then the champon. I was already full so I asked them to leave the noodles out, but the soup is seriously good! The seafood dashi comes through clearly and the vegetables are crisp — really tasty. Ordering this as a vegetable soup to close the night out might be a very good move. I don’t know whether it was because I had the noodles left out, but there were tons of vegetables and I came away very satisfied!
The atmosphere is so heavily retro that it felt a bit hard to walk into, but once you’re inside you order by QR code, the menu is enormous, even the dishes labeled “lunch something” can be ordered all day, and every dish is careful and good — what a great place this is! I think they’re open until around 2:00 on weekdays. That’s excellent, isn’t it. It struck me as perfect for the second stop of a night out around Yurakucho, so I’m going to keep it in mind.
Manpuku Shokudo (Izakaya / Hibiya Station, Yurakucho Station, Ginza 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?
