To the horror of my many vegetarian family members, I truly, deeply love chicken.

Well, that's not true. I couldn't care less about 99% of the chicken on menus in the U.S.

Rather, I love Japanese chicken. To be precise: Yakitori!

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焼き鳥（やきとり // Yakitori）

In a bout of laziness, I was just going to copy and paste the Wikipedia definition of yakitori here. But it was riddled with errors! Heretics!

Yakitori is skewered chicken cooked over a charcoal grill.

Usually when you order yakitori, they will give you the option of タレ (yakitori sauce) or 塩 (しお // salt).

If you get either of these, the chicken will already be seasoned or have sauce on it, and cooked, before you get it.

In rare cases, you can dip the yakitori in sauce yourself:

↑ That was taken at Marukin, which is quite possibly my favorite yakitori restaurant of all:

They have a drink bar where you can pour your own drinks. And yeah, it's all you can drink. Nice!

Best of all, it's really cheap.

It's just a short walk from Shibuya Station:

It's not too hard to find because it's right above the McDonald's:

Here's the Google Maps location. Hopefully it doesn't disappear before you try to go there. Stores are always relocating and stuff in Japan.

You may recall that I talked all about using Marukin's beer vending machines back in this lesson: [NDL #15] - How to work automatic beer-dispensing machines in Japan.

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What's on the menu?!

Giving an in-depth rundown of a yakitori menu would take forever.

Let's just look at bits and pieces...

Here's a more or less classic yakitori menu:

Yikes.

I'm not gonna translate all that.

Some popular items include...

つくね（chicken meatball）

もも（thigh）

皮（かわ // skin）

ぼんじり（tail）

砂肝（すなぎも // gizzard）

ハツ（hearts）

レバー（liver）

ねぎま（chicken with green onion）

ささみ（chicken tenderloin）

Most of those sound gross when you say them in English, but you might be pleasantly surprised by the flavor... though I never did acquire a taste for liver...

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If you're just about anywhere in Japan, and you want to eat cheap yakitori, then I recommend looking for 鳥貴族 (とりきぞく).

鳥貴族 literally means something like "Lord of Chicken" or "Chicken Lord."

Or just walk around looking for the words 焼き鳥・やきとり.

You could also go wherever your travel guide mentions, though in my experience travel guides go a little over the top. I think eating yakitori at an izakaya the way everyday people do is, as a tourist, just as enjoyable as going to some fancy-pants restaurant. ^^

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To wrap things up, here are a bunch of pictures Rei and I have taken over the years at yakitori places...

↑ Me holding a menu.

↑ A yakitori 盛り合わせ (もりあわせ), which is an assortment of different types of yakitori.

↑ When you get つくね月見 (つくねつきみ), literally "tsukune moon-viewing," it comes with a raw egg yolk in a sauce.

↓ You stir up the egg, dip, and enjoy:

You'll find that つくね is prepared all sorts of ways.

↓ Here it is with daikon on top of it:

Hold on. We're just scratching the surface.

Let's order some ぼんじり, chicken tail!

In Sapporo, they say ぽんぽち instead of ぼんじり.

I think ぽんぽち sounds cooler.

↑ If you're like me, you'll be putting tons of 七味 (しちみ) on your yakitori, which is a blend of cayenne, sesame, Japanese pepper, and so on.

↑ Negima!

And, of course, the best thing about yakitori restaurants:

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Talking About Yakitori

焼き鳥食いてー！
やきとり　くいてー！
I want some yakitori!
Literally: "yakitori + want to eat."

↑ Careful. This is extremely casual language. Or rather, it's slang.

一番好きな焼き鳥何？
いちばん　すきな　やきとり　なに？
What's your favorite (type of) yakitori?
Literally: "number one + liked + yakitori + what?"

レバー以外何でもいい。
レバー　いがい　なんでも　いい。
I'm OK with anything but liver.
Literally: "liver + other than + anything + good."
Note: You can say this when your Japanese friend is asking you what kind of yakitori he/she should order.

Anyway, I hope you can enjoy some nice grilled chicken while in Japan.

If you don't eat chicken, then... uh... sorry for showing you all of those photos. *_*