Summer evenings are here, and so are the slow hours spent cooling off with a cold beer and crisp fried vegetables at a kushiage restaurant.
Kushiage, also known as kushikatsu, is a cuisine comprising skewers of vegetables (all right, and meat too) that are breaded and deep-fried, and served with a thin dip based on Worcestershire sauce. The establishments that serve it tend to be charmingly rustic and boisterous places, and I'm no stranger to them, especially in the summer months.
Just east of Tokyo in Funabashi is Kushikatsu Dengana (4-43-20 Honcho, Funabashi-shi, Chiba-ken; 050-5872-3658). This place is lively, but also roomy and comfortable compared with many of Tokyo's hole-in-the-wall kushiage joints. Dengana also has an unusually long list of vegetarian items — I counted at least 16 options — including one that's a bit of a rare find: tōmorokoshi, or deep-fried corn. That's one more way to eat corn I wouldn't have imagined before coming to Japan.
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