Great Yakiton with

Good evening.
Thank you very much for visiting this blog.

Today I’d like to write about a “Yakiton” restaurant in Koiwa, “Tonton”.

Contents

Yakiton restaurant “Tonton” in Koiwa

The name of this restaurant is “Tonton”, but it’s hard to know how it’s read when you see the name in Chinese letters.

The day I visited there was in later February.
It was for a very late New Year’s party with my ex-colleagues of the place I used to work for.

A member of our group was a reviewer of “Tabelog (one of Japan’s biggest restaurant review websites)” who has a lot of followers, and it was his choice to come to this restaurant.
I had come to Shinkoiwa some times because my senior colleague lived there, but it was my first time to come to Koiwa.

I had a rough image that “Koiwa is the next station to Shinkoiwa”, and I took Sobu Line without checking the exact location.
However, the station next to Shinkoiwa was “Hirai Station”…… I got off at a wrong station, and I got late for the time.
Well, I don’t listen to onboard announcements…, do you?

So, only I had to go to the restaurant by myself to see everyone else there.
I started walking to the place checking the map on “Tabelog” from Koiwa Station which I got off for the first time.

There are many shopping streets around Koiwa Station, and the atmosphere was like my image of Tokyo in the Showa period.
I walked along a pretty street like you see in the next photo to the restaurant.

This is Jizo-dori.
There are many “Sembero-Izakaya (Izakaya restaurants where you can drink cheaply to get very drunk only with 1,000 yen)” along this street.
There are also some adult entertainment shops.

After this street, I came in a wider road.
I turned right there, and I arrived at “Tonton” after walking for a little.

The inside was like this.

It was “Showa Nostalgic” taste as well as the atmosphere of the town.

The menu of “Tonton”

These are their Nihonshu menus.

They had good sake brands.
This below is the food menu.

Most of them were lower than 500 yen, and there were no foods over 1000 yen.
It looked that poor people like me could drink and eat much with this pricing.
So, we ordered what we liked, as many as we wanted.

Foods of “Tonton”

The first dish arrived was,

Torikawa Ponzu (Cooked chicken skin seasoned with Ponzu vinegar).
The next was,

Yakiton (grilled meat, mainly pork, and other ingredients on sticks).
Pork back ribs, liver, heart…… Everything was fresh, and they had nice texture and deep good flavor.

And salad.

It was “Zen-nose (everything is on) Tokumori (extra large) Salad”.
On the plate, there were pieces of cabbage, chilled tomato, onion salad, and Tofu salad piled up together.
It was great to refresh my mouth between meat dishes.

After the salad was,

“Nikusashi (meat sashimi) Moriawase (various kinds on a plate)”.
There were cooked cow rumen, uterus, and omasum (if my memory is correct).
They didn’t have strong taste, but the texture was interesting.

“Umeichirin Tokubetsu Honjozo Hiyaoroshi” with Nikusashi

Sake which I had with the Nikusashi was,

“Umeichirin Tokubetsu Honjozo Hiyaoroshi”.
Foods arrived quickly so far, so I was still drinking the first glass of whisky and soda.
The glass became empty, so I ordered this sake for the second.

Umeichirin is dry, but also has comfortable flavor.
It’s enjoyable enough by itself, but of course, it’s also good with other foods.
It refreshes Yakiton’s oil in the mouth, and make Nikusashi’s flavor richer.

A staff who brought me the sake filled up my glass to the brim, to just before spilling over.
The staff’s technique and hospitality impressed me a lot.

After Nikusashi,

Motsuni (stewed entrails).
Maybe it was Shiro-Miso based soup, and the taste was mild.
The ingredients were cooked well until they became very soft, and very delicious.

And, gyoza.

Sake and food were too good to write the blog

I was pretty drunk by then, so I only took photos, but no notes about the tastes, so I can’t write about the details about each sake^^;
As the restaurant had many good foods and many reasonable sake, we drunk and ate much.

I also had “Karakuchi Jumangame”,

And “Ginjo Kumamoto Shinriki”.

Our conversation became lively, and I had forgotten to leave notes for this article from some point.

This restaurant was a very nice place with relaxing atmosphere, good foods, good sake, and reasonable prices. The staffs’ service was great as well.

I wished that there was a restaurant like this near my nearest station or on the way home from work.
It would be fun every day.
Unfortunately, there is no one like it.

It even made me think that moving to Koiwa is not so bad, in the point of convenience of access as well.