With its spacious and polished interior, Yasubee’s main store by the train tracks on the outer side of the yokocho doesn’t seem as though its been there for long, but the restaurant has been running in Omoide Yokocho since 1951. Apart from providing the most elbow room in the vicinity, Yasubee’s list of nihonshu is the most extensive on the scene, making it a heavy hitter when it comes to the art of pairing food with sake. Here, you’ll find rice wine from sake breweries all over Japan, each with unique aromas and flavour profiles.
Just like the sake list, the food menu offers a variety of dishes for every kind of palate. You’ll see standard izakaya items like delicate saikyo yaki (grilled white fish marinated in miso) as well as more unusual offerings such as skin of fugu (pufferfish), seasoned with citrus vinegar and topped with spring onions. An old-time favourite is the motsu nikomi, a collagen-packed stew of beef shank, tendon and tripe. The broth has been boiled for hours, drawing out the fat from the meat, and its richness goes brilliantly with a glass of bright rice wine.