Yukari, Harajuku ゆかり、原宿
Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 8:26PM | Dave 
The subdued, dark stained wood and narrow steps of Yukari’s entrance belie the three floors of roomy, if spartan, izakaya within. Besides the aluminium air ducts, bare lighting and coat hangers adorning the wall, an assortment of beer posters and hand written menu excerpts are all that brighten the otherwise instantly forgettable décor and dinner-hall atmosphere.
My dining partners and I arrived early, a little after 6pm, to find each floor sparsely populated and unsettlingly quiet. As time wore on, thankfully, our floor – the third – did indeed become busier as a mix of middle-aged salarymen, students and Harajuku libertines settled in. For these patrons, at least, the food was secondary to lively chat and chain-smoking… We reeked of stale smoke by the end of the evening.
For us, the food (and talk?) was secondary to the guzzling of beer. Cheap beer. ¥180 beer. We managed to polish off two-dozen of them and a good amount of food between the three of us, with the final tab coming in at just under ¥3,000 per head. In terms of price, this was almost American territory… Only with less vomit…
Although bags were provided for the overly ambitious among the young drinkers that frequent Yukari.
Service was prompt, delivery for the most part swift – although a couple of our orders disappeared into the nether only to return after our gentle admonitions. Clearly, you’ll not be visiting here for the cuisine. It’s all about the low price, bucket loads of beer and/ or highballs, and cheap, oily and defrosted standards to line the stomach.
The evening’s fare commenced with an otoshi of bean sprouts and enoki mushrooms. Ravenous as we were, these dishes followed in quick succession, allowing barely enough time for them to be hastily snapped before the next arrived. By time we were done, repeat orders were the all we had the will to muster.
Avocado, unadorned, dipped in soy sauce, was soft and creamy, and just a tad too cold. The shioyakisoba topped with cabbage, leak and bacon was just what the doctor ordered and, according to one of my dining partners, a vast improvement upon the sauce-smothered variety.
Maguro sushi and minuscule nigiri tipped a hat at the bounty of the seas and two fingers at conservationists. If you are serious about your raw fish, don’t bother. The maruyaki ika, sadly, did little to impress. Not as soft and recently-defrosted as the stuff they cast before you at the American, but still not quite right either.
Inevitably, the beer tally required balancing with carbs. We needed to look no further than the fried potato wedges smothered in molten cheese and then drowned in Tabasco. The fried cabbage with konbu was actually quite enjoyable, too. We made short work of it at least, although the neighbouring table managed to make a bowl of the stuff last all night.
Although neither too greasy nor too fatty, the chicken karaage was average at best, yet filling. The fact that I enjoyed the limp, unadulterated garnish of lettuce leaves as much as anything else served for us speaks volumes.
Yukari is all about the beer, and nobody pretends otherwise between the hours of 5pm and 5am, for ¥180, Monday to Thursday.
03-5785-4100
Reader Comments (3)
We've created a FB group to facilitate contact between people in Japan and the Pacific to their friends and families abroad. We're thinking that official channels are likely to be overwhelmed as a result of the crisis and we wanted to do what we can to help. I've posted our Facebook group above. If you need anything or can give us more information, please do.
Continued good luck.
i like the stuff on your pages in particular if about sushi.
I was here in '08 during the rainy season. I've been looking for pix of this place becuase the night was a drunken blur after a while. Thanks for bringin' it back, chief.