Even seven Springs down the line I can still remember an evening in one of my favorite Japanese izakaya (the cozy, traditional, family-run pubs of Japan).  After seven long days on the trot I was at last finishing up for the night and looking forward to a hard earned day off.  We hit up a convenient beer vending machine (as you do in a civilized place like Kyoto) and like a chain of train cars, our weary appetites railed along the Kyoto subway line as we wound our way to the Station nearest the Heian Shrine and legged it from there to Okariba –an out of the way destination for all who seek rare and wild culinary delights.  This is not a Kaiseki, highfalutin dining room in white linen with a nervously keen wait staff.  Okariba is a dimly lit cavern of dark wood and a menu replete with all the flora and fauna of the forest and a grand selection of Sake as wide as the smile they bring.  Aoki-san (the ever beaming chef and proprietor) makes for a picture of hospitality that belies his killer instincts; for it is he that lands all the game he serves.

What more could one desire when finishing a long stretch of work?  A cavalcade of countless tiny plates introduce any number of new things to check off that list ranging from snake, cured bee larvae, and Aoki-san’s signature grilled wild boar to cured bear, candied crickets, mountain vegetables (foraged by Aoki-san’s mother) and even Basashi; who would ever have guessed raw horse would fast become one of my favorite Japanese delights?  (Keep in mind these are special horses bred for such purpose not that show horse you grew up grooming)  Although this was soon a mandatory restaurant to entertain visitors, Okariba is not merely a destination to try novelties.  Here everyone drops their shoulders and rocks their backs into the place to try wondrous combinations of rare food and every shade of Sake imaginable.  This was an education stretching the full spectrum of Sake –to bolster the spirits and settle the score that Sake belongs with so many menus beyond the sushi restaurants’ –in particular with raw horse and wild boar.  This could just as easily apply to blue steak and grilled pork.  Food for thought…

Nicholas D. Livingston, Arbiter bibendi