Shakey's Pizza, Ikebukuro シェーキーズピザ、池袋

This chain is more or less all over the place, although you may not notice them. They just tend to blend in to their surroundings (despite often garish facades), or else are outshone by more youthful offerings. Over the years, and despite being aware of and reported to regarding Shakey’s, I’ve managed (thankfully?) to avoid venturing across the threshold of any of their eateries. Until now that is…

Having navigated the semi-deserted streets my dining partner and I skulked in to entrance and down the flight of steps to yet another basement Ikebukuro establishment. Busy, despite the threat of radiation and repeat earthquakes, it was still clear that having any empty tables at all was an unknown phenomenon for the young staff.

We paid our ¥850 upfront for the all-you-can-eat buffet lunch, although we passed on the opportunity to “size-up” with drinks and salad bar. Swiftly seated in a bland corner of the cavernous interior, we soon navigated the queue and piled our plates with fresh, and not so fresh, pizza – all the usual varieties, as well oddities such as the Kit-Kat Crushed Pizza (the least vomit-educing example, believe me…) – utterly tasteless pasta, one seemingly all about bacon, the other garlic and some Japanese mountain weed. Curry and rice, too, graced our table if not our sensibilities.

Apart from either slightly dry or slightly soggy, yet equally bland, pizza, the only other thing on my mind was, “how can you make pasta that tastes of nothing?”

This chain, and all they offer, has clearly seen better days.

03-3983-4818

www.rkfs.co.jp