Yakitori

Yakitori in a nutshell: kill chicken, put on stick, grill over fire, and eat. The world at large suffers a serious lack of meat on a stick options, but Japan is a glorious exception to this rule. Here, you can get basically anything on a stick. Once while viewing the fall colors at Korankei, near Toyota City, I ate grilled sparrow. How could I say no to that? It was tasty. As expected. Yakitori, literally translates as grilled chicken, and belongs to the family of Japanese foods called kushiyaki (串焼き), which simply means skewer grilled. It sounds simple, but a great chef with quality ingredients and seasonings can make it taste like a whole lot more. More specifically, yakitori consists of between 3 and 10 small pieces of chicken (beef, pork, etc) meat or innards (properly, ofal) skewered on a bamboo stick, seasoned, and grilled; generally over charcoal. You will find most dishes offered in either salt or tare flavor. They will probably ask which you prefer when you order. Salt, or shio (塩-しお-シオ), is simply salted at grilling, but tare (たれ-タレ) is a sauce usually made with mirin, sake, soy sauce, and sugar- although really, how many Japanese foods…