Akitaya Yakitori - Our "Soko ga" Moment

Hands down, our evening at Akitaya was my favorite time of the entire trip to Japan. With all due respect to the hot springs, castles and great food we would still encounter during our travels, eating yakitori and drinking beer at Akitaya was our "Soko ga" moment.

So before I go on and on about my awesome time at Akitaya, let me explain about "Soko ga" which is short for Soko ga Shiritai. This is actually the name of a Japanese television show that was popular in the early nineties. Reporters would travel around Japan trying different restaurants, sightseeing and looking for unusual things of interest. This is really an oversimplified explanation of the show but you get the picture.

Anyway, KIKU (http://www.kikutv.com/), a local television station in Hawaii has continued to show reruns of Soko ga Shiritai for years now, even though the series has long since ended. What was always the most fun for my friends and I to watch was when the reporters would find some hole in the wall bar or restaurant that would serve cheap and tasty food with good beer and/or sake. The visiting reporters would inevitably make friends with the regulars at the bar and end up drinking and eating the night away with their new friends. It became a dream of ours to one day visit Japan and experience this as our Soko ga moment. Akitaya Yakitori was that moment.

Akitaya is a very popular yakitori place just a short walk from the Meishu Sake Center in Shiba. Salary men crowd the place after work to enjoy some tasty and inexpensive yakitori and beer before going home. Our plan was to have a few drinks at the Meishu Center and then continue on to Akitaya for some food and good times. As you will see in the upcoming pictures, we were certainly not disappointed.

Part of the Soko ga moment for us was drinking outside on the sidewalk outside Akitaya. You would always see this on Soko ga Shiritai and it always looks like so much fun. At Akitaya, makeshift tables made of wood and stacked plastic beer crates line the sidewalk fronting the establishment. Crowds of people huddle around plates of delicious food while happily drinking beer and shochu.

A good bar is the same no matter where in the world you go. Good food, good beer and good people. Just like the Soko ga Shiritai television show, we met some fun people at Akitaya and became friends immediately. Here's a picture of Timmy (on the left) and his new Japanese friend. We could not remember his real name so Timmy ended up giving him the Hawaiian name "Keoni" for the rest of the night. These two guys became good friends very quickly. Alcohol is a powerful drug . . . heh heh!

Here's a shot of us before the fun begins. As you can see we are literally standing on the sidewalk and actually overflowing on to the street.

Here we are after a few beers. You can see Timmy's new friend Keoni on the far right making the Hawaii "shaka" sign around Richard.

Side Note: A Japanese show very similar to Soko ga Shiritai is called Next Stop Discovery. Although the episodes that KIKU broadcasts in Hawaii are a few years old, it is my understanding that the series is still running in Japan. Here is a link to their website, sorry but it's all in Japanese http://www.ntv.co.jp/burari/.