山喜屋 - Yamakiya

Address: 台北市大安區敦化南路一段270巷28號

Telephone: (02)2772-3300

Website : Yamakiya

Hours: Monday to Sunday 17:30 - 01:00

Who doesn't like a little variety in there life. Clearly this can't apply to everything (take significant others for example), but many things in our lives could be improved by introducing more options. I realize that on occasion too many choices can lead to an headache.. but that's what food is about to me. It's about treading through the mire of crappy food until you stumble upon something that just lights you up. We've all had the experience of sitting in a room with someone just peppering out ideas of restaurants and/or types of cuisine. With each idea being systemically shot down... until you get to that one place... whose mere mention almost makes everyone leap out of their chairs. It may be a tedious process, but it's half the fun to come to that consensus as people happily bound out the door. I think this is why I looooooooooooooooooooove (o's for emphasis) izakaya/tapas/good buffets/etc... so much. A little from column A, some from column B.. and on down the line you go. Sure, occasionally a healthy heaping of steak will do the trick, but even in those scenarios I like to switch it up with some appetizers. So yes.. on a drizzly Friday night, we headed to a local izakaya/ yakitori Japanese establishment to see what sort of meal could be conjured up and how many different dishes can be piled on the table at one time.

Some simple vegetables to start. Free! How kind of them.

A very vinegar heavy beverage.. not exactly to my tastes, but all the rage lately apparently.

Pumpkin Salad. Very similar tastes and consistency with potato salad. Very heavy and thick.

山喜屋 or Yamakiya is a cozy little restaurant located in a little alley behind Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT station. It is a two story establishment where the overflow usually heads down to dine in the basement (where we found ourselves tonight without an reservation). The restaurant is decorated nicely and gives a very old school Japanese feel. It is mostly known as a place to enjoy Yakitori, but they have a variety of dishes besides that.

Tofu seaweed salad. (as well as other things). I thought it was rather tasty if a lil heavy for a salad.

Croquettes. Nice and crispy.

Fried Tofu Skewers. Nothing too special here.

As my sister was busy rattling off the dishes.... the waitress seemed to get a glazed look over her eyes as her hand started hurting from the furious scribbling (only slight exaggeration). It is a tradition in our family.. to over order, although is it really over ordering when everything on the table will eventually be consumed? Probably not.

Sweet shrimp hand roll. For me.. the best non yakitori dish of the night. The mayo probably helped.

A favorite of the kids. Japanese style quesadilla. Seaweed and cheese on the inside.

For those who are fans of mountain yam (not it). This dish should be right up your alley... covered with delicious mentaiko.

As a whole, I found everything to be rather good, but there was no one dish that I can point to and go.. WOW.. that was executed perfectly. This is really a testament to the quality of food that Taiwan has to offer, and the quality of Japanese food that I've been lucky enough to be exposed to in my life. This is not an indictment of the quality of 山喜屋, as again, everything was very tasty, but it was simply just good and not great.

Deep Fried Shrimp Roll and Some yummy beef skewers.

Fried Chicken Skin. I could take a pass.. to be honest, i'm not exactly what a fantastic version of this was suppose to taste like.

Like I said, nothing that we tried from the menu could be considered weak. So that bodes well for the other dishes on the extensive menu that we didn't get to try on this visit. They also have a variety of sashimi and other choices for you to try if your tastes buds so desire. As I have made abundantly clear, I enjoy some variety, and if I had to do it over again, I would probably have balanced out our abundance of skewers with a little bit more sushi and or tempura like goodies.

Beef over rice with a wasabi based sauce on top. One of my favorites, in both presentation and taste.

Some traditional rice balls. What i would like to call stomach filler.

Spicy Tuna Handrolls. Provides a nice change of pace to all the meat inspired dishes.

The issue with a lot of good and even poor Izakaya/Yakitori restaurants is that the bill somehow always is able to catch you off guard. It is my experience that the ordering typically commences in waves and its easy to lose track just what kind of bill you have racked up until it ultimately arrives... and its doubly so if you happen to swallow your food whole like I do. The bill was not cheap, but considering all the dishes we ordered it was what I expected.. roughly 3000-4000nt for the 4 of us. I would suspect that the average patron can expect to spend 500 nt and upwards.

Overall, I've had better and more inviting restaurants that provide the same dishes as Yamakiya (山喜屋), but if you have paid attention to what i've been saying, you'll also realize that I haven't had a negative word to say. Yamakiya (山喜屋) just inhabits a crowded market of awesome Japanese food. It is true that I haven't had a lot of restaurants of this type in Taiwan, but i've had Japanese in general... and I know the greatness that I can expect in the months and years to come. Yamakiya (山喜屋) just falls short of that greatness.

Overall Yamakiya (山喜屋) Receives: