Drinking Japan. Chris Bunting
that makes “Denshu,” were picking up so many gold medals at the national sake competitions for this fruity but well-mannered sake that they didn’t know where to put them.
DIRECTIONS: Shinjuku-sanchōme Station, Exit C6. Turn left out of the exit (reversing your direction). It is about nine yards along on the right—the izakaya with a bamboo-barred window under a sign for another shop saying Amigo.
Galali 03-3408-2818 www.gala-e.com
3-6-5 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tōkyō
東京都渋谷区神宮前 3-6-5
Open: Weekdays 6 pm–4 am; Saturday, Sunday and holidays 6 pm–11 pm
Booking recommended? Yes Credit cards? Most major cards
English menu? Yes Table charge: 800 yen
You could almost mistake Galali for a residential house, which is apparently what the local residents think. There have been complaints from neighbors about the din through the thin walls. This is, therefore, not the best place to come for a noisy night out, but, if you are up for some serious sake drinking (at some moderately serious prices), Galali has an original approach. It is a sister establishment to the nearby Garari kokuto shōchū bar (see page 93), which serves its spirits with an unrivaled range of miso. At Galali, the featured combination is salt and sake, a traditional favorite. Twelve different types of salt line the bar, ranging from quite sour umejio—salt that has been used to pack umeboshi plum pickle barrels—to a delicious sweet sea salt from Ishikawa. Each has a unique taste and, if you ask, they will give you selected salts to taste with your sake free of charge. Salt also features strongly in the menu (for example, Jidori no shioyaki, grilled salty chicken, 1,200 yen), and they recommend it as an accompaniment for their sashimi moriawase (raw fish selection, 2,700 yen). I was recommended the Honjōzō Tamagaeshi “Jū Yon Dai” (十四 代 from the extensive sake menu. In my experience, any bar that has a good supply of “Jū Yon Dai” will want to shout it from the rooftops. It has an almost legendary status but is actually a very young brand. It was first released in 1993 by the 15th-generation head of Takagi Shuzō, Akitsuna Takagi (the sake’s name means 14 and is a tribute to his predecessor). Akitsuna was educated at Tōkyō Agricultural University, which has become a major force in modern Japanese alcohol, turning out a generation of highly educated, innovative alcohol makers (for example, the shōchū innovator Yoichiro Nishi of Nishi Shuzō (see page 98) was a classmate of Takagi’s). The “Jū Yon Dai” honjōzō is made by introducing a small amount of kasutori shōchū (see page 81) into the fermentation tank, both to lighten the taste as well as to bring out flavors. It has a gentle vanilla sweetness but no cloying aftertaste.
DIRECTIONS: Gaienmae Station (Ginza Line), Exit 2. Walk down the right side of Route 246 to the southwest. Turn right onto route 418 just after the Bell Commons building. Cross the road to Starbucks and continue to the pedestrian footbridge. Turn left immediately after the bridge. Galali is hidden behind a cycle shop in what looks like a residential alley across the road from the Oakwood Residence building (just before the Moritex building).
Ginjōtei 吟醸鼎 011-261-0720 www.ginjyoutei.com
Basement, President Matsui Biru 100, 5 chōme, Minami Ichijō, Chūō-ku, Sapporo
札幌市中央区南 1 条西 5 丁目 プレジデント松井ビル 100 地下（電車通り沿い）
Open: 6 pm–11 pm; sometimes closes at 8 pm if empty; closed Sunday and national holidays
Booking recommended? Yes (booking requested by the owner) Credit cards? Most major cards
English menu? No Table charge: 500 yen (sometimes there are special events with a higher charge)
When you write a book about alcohol and bars you get used to marathon nights on the town, but nothing prepared me for the evening I spent with Phred Kaufman, the legendary owner of Mugishutei (see page 154), and Kjetil Jikiun, the man behind the Norwegian beer brewery Nøgne Ø. We were still out at 6 am, long past my bedtime! Somewhere in the middle of that hazily remembered evening, Phred took us to Ginjōtei. I remember a veritable procession of superb sakes trooping their way along the bar top into our glasses. A couple of highlights that survived the hangover’s regrets: an unpasteurized “Dassai” (瀬祭) from Asahi brewery with a superb balanced fruitiness, and the overripe melon smell of the rich “Yuuho” junmai ginjō (遊穂 糸屯米吟醸) from Mioya brewery in Ishikawa prefecture. The kanji on the “Yuuho” bottle means “playful rice head” but it is also a pun on the Japanese pronunciation of UFO: Mioya is based in Hakui city, which is known as Japan’s UFO sighting capital. Until recently, the brand was itself a bit of a UFO in the sake world. The kura did not have a strong reputation until Miho Fujita, a women’s college English literature graduate who had been working as an office lady, suddenly found herself in charge of a brewery! In 2004, she met Toshiaki Yokomichi, one of the most exciting young master brewers, at a meeting of sake makers but refused to tell him her name or kura because she felt she didn’t know enough about the business. They met again the next year and her raw enthusiasm and commitment convinced him to commit his bright future to a kura that had, until then, only been making futsūshu (sake’s equivalent of vin ordinaire) for the local market. Mioya has started winning regional and national medals and is now being taken very seriously indeed.
DIRECTIONS: Ōdōri Station (Tozai/Tōhō/Nanboku Lines), Exit 3. Turn left and walk one block. It is in the basement of the President Matsui building, on the same block as the Hotel Okura. It is one block west of the Nishi 4-chōme tram stop.
Hanamori 花守り 082-247-5722 r.gnavi.co.jp/y120000
3F Taira Biru, 10-18 Mikawachō, Naka-ku, Hiroshima-shi, Hiroshima, 730-0029
〒 730-0029 広島県広島市中区三川町 10-18 平ビル 3F
Open: 6 pm–1 am Booking recommended? Yes Credit cards? Visa, Master, DC and JCB, not Amex
English menu? No Table charge: 400 yen
Hiroshima has long been admired for its soft and relatively sweet style of sake. Saijo town, to the east of Hiroshima city, has been a center for the industry since 1650, and there are old breweries dotted all over the prefecture. During the 20th century, the area gained a particular reputation for its high quality and was an early leader in the development of the ginjō and daiginjō techniques. Hanamori is a very good place to sample this rich tradition, with about 50 types of sake available, about a third of which come from the Hiroshima area. The interior is traditionally Japanese in style, with tatami-floored rooms threaded along a long and narrow floor plan. The food is strong on local marine specialities, such as anago (conger eel, 1,200 yen) and kawahagi sashimi (raw kawahagi fish, 2,400 yen). The sashimi moriawase (a seasonal selection of five types of sashimi, about 950 yen depending on the fish used) is very popular with customers. From the sake menu, I was recommended a “Taketsuru” (竹鶴 junmaishu. Taketsuru brewery is the same 300-year-old family enterprise that the founder of Japanese whisky, Masataka Taketsuru, came from (see page 164). Tatetsuru brewery’s current tōji (master brewer), Tatsuya Ishikawa, was a student at Waseda University in Tōkyō when he got hooked on quality sake and decided to make it his calling. He has significantly changed Taketsuru’s style since