Ebisu yakitori night: charcoal skewers & standing bars

Yakitori sounds simple: chicken on a skewer over charcoal. But a serious yakitori shop uses nearly the whole bird — a dozen-odd different cuts, each with its own grilling time, doneness and dip — and the menu names them in Japanese, with no pictures.

Ebisu is where Tokyo goes to eat dinner rather than where visitors go, and the shops here are small: a U-shaped counter wrapped around the charcoal, the owner grilling an arm's length in front of you. Two and a half hours across two or three of them. You'll eat momo (thigh) and negima (chicken and spring onion) — the cuts everyone knows — and then the ones you'd never order alone: crisp cartilage, heart, liver as soft as ice cream, skin grilled to the edge of burnt, and tsukune with a raw yolk to roll it through. It's cooked over binchotan charcoal, which burns hot and almost smokeless, and that's the difference between a skewer at home and a skewer here.

Your guide orders in the right sequence — mild first, strong later — and translates what the owner says. Some shops serve chicken rare; say so beforehand and everything can be swapped. Beer or highball included, or tea if you don't drink.