田舎の居酒屋

Ware and Sekki took me to a local Kasugai Izakaya. The vibe reminded me of the kind of bars my dad would take me to when I was a kid in rural Illinois. Obviously they are very different but the atmosphere of local people who knew each other coming together for a drink was very much the same. Ware said that he had been here alot as a kid so it was nostalgic for him. We ordered many many small dishes and I tried a ton of foods I've probably never had before.

One of the most interesting things of the night was a drink that was served in a covered container with a blowfish fin in it. In Japanese blowfish is known as フグ or fugu 🐡 Before drinking, you are supposed to light a match and burn off the alcohol that accumulated under the lid. I was having a lot of trouble accidentally breaking the matches so ware gave me a hand with my first drink. The matches at this bar were not as strong as the matches I use back home so I kept snapping them in half. Other patrons at the bar also thought it was funny that I could not attempt to light a match without splitting it in two 😅

In Osaka, Ware taught us that to order a lemon sour with the same lemons instead of getting replacement lemons was called "naka". So you could just say naka and get a refill. Doing this would produce a different flavor as the frozen lemons melted over time. With this fuku drink, which is called ふぐひれ酒 or fuguhireshu, the same concept applied! You could say either 継酒 which is Tsugi-shu/Tsugi-zake and then get a refill with the same fin. This slightly changed the taste as the fin was not as strong each subsequent drink.

One of the patrons also attempted to talked to me and was super proud of himself for being able to use one or two english sentences to greet me. He tried talking with me some but I have difficulty speaking when embarassed and it felt like everyone was looking at me in that moment. He also spoke very fast so I had trouble catching everything. I appreciate that he was so willing and friendly to talk but I'm just not at the level yet to understand natural fluent Japanese. I think I could respond a little bit but I'm having trouble recalling because I procrastinated on writing this Journal entry. So for the sake of my pride, let's say I was able to respond some 😆

I eventually was able to light my own match and get a small video of myself proudly burning off the top part of the alcohol. Big thanks to Ware and Sekki for bringing me here to see some day in the life Japanese Izakaya culture 🍻Baca lagi