Photo: Yamamori Izakaya, Facebook

I’ve put off writing about the Izakaya for a long time. It is, and has long been, one of my favourite places to eat and drink in Dublin. And I really don’t want you going there.

During a rather intoxicating dream last year, where I spent a month falling in love with everything about Japan, I  drank sake and ate nearly-still-alive sashimi from beautiful baskets in the izakayas – basically, Japanese pubs that are easily identified by the pretty red lanterns inside.

The Yamamori Izakaya is just across the road from the Yamamori restaurant on George’s Street. The downstairs section, which quite faithfully recreates a Japanese  drinking house, is really special; I haven’t even been bothered setting foot upstairs.

The Yamamori Izakaya serves what we’ve come to call “tapas-style” food as a lazy shorthand (even more irksome is that they’re calling them “Japas”). Spain doesn’t have a monopoly on small courses served with drink; Japanese izakayas have always served a succession of small or medium sized courses, which are enjoyed with beers over the course of an evening. Read the rest of this entry »