Dining Out in Tokyo, Mid-August, 2021
My wife and I wanted to go out for sushi the other night here in Ningyōchō. We needed someplace close, as it was getting close to 7:00, currently the time for last order at restaurants in Tokyo under the current corona restrictions. Or at least I think it is 7:00 last order; it is sometimes hard to tell by looking at what is happening most evenings with local places. I had just finished some shopping by bicycle around the neighborhood and had noticed there were only three or four sushi shops open, out of the usual twenty or so. All of our usual, favorite places were closed, but I had noticed one shop where we occasionally go was open. While I quickly cleaned up, meaning a fresh shirt but no shower as there was not time, my wife walked over to check if we could still get in. She quickly called me to say yes, we can eat there, but I needed to hurry. So off I went.
When I walked in there were just my wife, one man, and two other women seated at the counter, all drinking some sort of alcohol, despite the ban. Because of this, I really should not name the restaurant as it might get the place in trouble with the local restaurant association. And I shouldn’t take photos either, just to be safe. Which is kind of a shame as it means I can’t write a full review of a restaurant unless it does not serve alcohol. If a place does serve alcohol I need to either omit the name of the place or the fact that they serve.
As time was short, I sat down and quickly ordered a tokuri of cold sake, not caring what it was. My wife had already ordered some shōchū, which was the two women to my right were drinking, only theirs was from their own keep bottle. Next we started ordering, first otsumami, then nigiri, concluding with a roll of kampyo maki, finishing right at the buzzer, so to speak.
We were surprised to see the total was nearly ¥20,000, considering we did not eat too much, and nothing that would normally drive up the cost. And we only had one drink each. Perhaps the amount was so high due to there not being many customers that night, at least not when we were there. Or maybe we had to pay some sort of sake security fee to be able to drink alcohol when restaurants are technically not allowed to serve at any hour. Oh well. At least we were able to have something to drink with our meal.