Monday, March 09, 2009

Izakaya and an Irish Dive Bar

This past weekend, JC and I went to check out an Izakaya place called Oyaji in San Francisco. I'd never been to one before, and so it was a new experience for me. This one had a sushi bar too, which is not the norm, but I guess it results in an expanded sushi menu.

The sushi wasn't all that good, but the small plates were some good eats. I had all sorts of stuff -- grilled pork tongue, sizzling rib-eye beef, marinated meatballs, ramen, sushi, and more. Anyway, by the time we were done, we were ridiculously stuffed. I really felt like I needed to just rest a while before heading off to a nearby bar. Not sure I'd go out of my way just to eat there, but it wasn't a bad place and worth dropping by if you're in the area.

Oh, and I should mention that they carried Yebisu beer. That's the best Japanese beer in my opinion. I've only been introduced to it recently (maybe 6 weeks ago), but it's very different than your run-of-the-mill Sapporo or Asahi. For some reason, Yebisu tastes a lot more like a Belgian ale to me.

So, to finish up this quick story, we end up going over to an Irish dive bar about two miles away called O'Keeffe's. It's definitely a dive and it was very Irish (not the fake Irish you get at some of those so-called Irish pubs), but it was totally chill. We liked it a lot there. Both drinks and pool were cheap, the crowd was friendly, and the bartender was really cool too -- he even bought me a beer, which is always good for customer satisfaction. If it weren't so far away I'm sure we'd go back there a lot more.

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