yakitori

occasionally, more recently than not, we've been patrons of yakitori restaurants. i think the reason i hadn't gone in a while was that i wasn't too fond of the first, solely yakitori restaurant i went to. tiffany and i wanted dinner one evening and decided to give yakitori a go. it'd been a while (for me, not for tiff), and we chose a different location - there's literally thousands of them in japan.

most of them serve draft beer, japanese shochu (japanese liquor), and various meats on a stick. yakitori means meat, seafood, or vegetables grilled on skewers, usually served in singles or doubles. each restaurant it seems has a mysterious, secret sauce they spray on the grilling skewers during cooking. yakitori usually has a great smokey flavor, sometimes coming sauced up. at this particular restaurant, we ordered the salted chicken yakitori. it comes sans sauce. we also asked for this smokey, chipotle-reminiscent, slightly spicy red paste. it's to die for. slathering your yakitori in this paste is all you need. being that you can order as much or as little as you want, it's relatively quick, and it's also healthy, making it a popular choice for the japanese. i'm a huge advocate of it at this point. hmmmm, what am i having for dinner . . .

draft beer, grilled prawns, aspragus wrapped in bacon, piman (peppers) and chicken = perfect. you can see the red paste peeking in on the left side