Onigawara is a Jaoanese demon guardian. yakitori is like a fancy pub/eatery? and izakaya is a pub/eatery…with fewer lights?
What is the difference between a yakitori and an Izakaya?
Onigawara is a Jaoanese demon guardian. yakitori is like a fancy pub/eatery? and izakaya is a pub/eatery…with fewer lights?
What is the difference between a yakitori and an Izakaya?
Yakitori is basically grilled chicken on a stick.
Yaki -> ‘cooked over direct heat’
Tori -> ‘chicken’
(well, most literally, ‘bird’. also, not to be confused with ‘torii’, totally different concept)
Its like a street food, sorta like street tacos or hot dogs: relatively fast, simple, but still quite tasty… you could think of it as a very specific kind of barbecued chicken, sort of.
Izakaya is the pub/eatery, the place, the building.
Its … sort of a combination between a dive bar, and an all you can eat buffet?
Probably the westernized versions, they probably aren’t having a section for people dining on tatami mats, charging you an entrance fee, and then feeding you for up to 3 hours, as you order things in the order of ‘you know what will be cooked quickly, and what will take a while’… id imagine they’re probably more like just a sit down restaurant, with booths or tables and waiters snd servers and what not… though a lot of izakaya have that as well, it varies.
Yakitori also refers to a type of mid to upscale Japanese pub/restaurant with a wide menu of small dishes/skewers as well as the cultural signature yakitori skewer. Thank you for the direct translation.
While you can find yakitori as a street food at night markets, both izakayas and yakitori restaurants are cozy comfortable indoor pubs/bars, with yakitori pubs generally having more service, room and tables as well as a bar, although even an izakaya a lot cleaner and more-maintained/serviced than a dive bar, and a yakitori will be a fancy hardwood upscale sort of place with a much wider menu.
Boyyyyyy do I wish it was an AYCE buffet. In both izakayas and yakitoris, you’ll pay for each order/drink and can have them freshly prepared and delivered within minutes. So maybe 2 chicken hearts and a beer, then some tsukiji a little later, breathe a bit, get some shiso-wrapped pork. It’s pretty fun and chill.
An izakaya is a different type of pub, definitely less formal, usually less service and much more cramped, often just a bar and stools. People go to izakayas after work to get a bit rowdy, and the main point is drinking, rather than the menu, and sometimes there isn’t a menu at all.
I haven’t been to a western yakitori restaurant in about 15 years now, so I’m not sure how they’re organized these days. Back then, it was just like the Japanese ones, although the one I liked was owned and operated by a Japanese immigrant yakitori masterrrr, so he probably carefully traditionally controlled his yakitori pub more than a non-native or new-to-the-scene yakitori owner might.
… why did you ask the question … if you knew the answer?
Oh, haha, sorry, this question was from 2 months to gauge if what I understood from previous visits was correct, but I’ve since lived in Japan for 6 weeks and been fully versed in the deets by a new Japanese friend and the staff of several izakayas/yakitoris.