Living/Working Spaces! Scene: Tori-ko

I'm not only an English educator, but mix-up a pretty good cocktail, too!  In my "free time" I also help at the family restaurant, Tori-ko.  While I am of course biased, the food REALLY is delicious!  Ten-shu (or Store master/owner) makes his own original yakitori sauce that has a smoky flavor and isn't so sweet.  Liver (kimo) or heart (kokoro) have always just been icky for me, but I love it at our restaurant (very fresh meat, carefully cleaned and expertly grilled with his sauce...seconds please!)

Not that I have the chance to be a "diner" very often!  LOL.  Usually, I help out on busy days after my work day is "finished."  I also sometimes get calls to help with orders from customers who don't speak Japanese.  I can just imagine the scene with "ten-shu" saying, "Wait, wait..." as he passes a phone to the customer who has been pointing at food to convey their order.  We usually straighten it out, and they happily enjoy their meal.  Another unique salespoint....English on tap!  (Though I do harass the part-time staff to use their English skills more....since I KNOW they are taking English at university, though haven't had any of the current staffers in my classes!)

OK.  Enough chatter...here are the mouth-watering pics....stop in some time!

The course includes an appetizer, 3 sticks of yakitori dipped in Tori-ko's special sauce, 3 cooked with salt, Tori-wasa (lightly boiled breast meat with a wasabi and soy sauce dressing) Sasami-no-tataki (breast meat that is lightly grilled, then served thinly sliced with a savory dressing), Tori-pari Salad, Spicy chicken wing, Awa-no-uzumaki (similar to rolled sushi), and a salt-grilled chicken leg (super-size...all chicken is  the special local variety of Awa-o-dori chicken and they are just huge!) The course provides a delicious sample of many of the restaurant's chicken dishes.

Another favorite dish, especially in the colder months is "Mizu-taki," aka "nabe"(meat and vegetable cooked in a large pot at the table in water or broth and eaten after dipping in "ponzu," a citrus-vinegar sauce).

I love onions, so this dish is heavenly for me!  It's fried "momo," or leg meat, served with a generous topping of thinly sliced onions, ponzu and "sudachi," the delicious local citrus fruit.

This is an Awa-o-dori, a breed of chicken raised in Tokushima Prefecture. It's just one of our special local agricultural products.  Other wonderful ones include sudachi and Naruto kintoki ( a kind of sweet potato that is used in food and shochu, a type of liquor).

Itadaki-masu!!