Naka-Meguro and Meguro proper are worlds apart. The former is a boomtown of cool little bars and the latter a backwater of pachinko parlors and karaoke snacks. And while the two areas may sound geographically close, they are not. It takes almost an hour to walk between the two along the darkened stretch of Yamate-dori that separates them.
At either end of this night desert sits a bar, each owned and run by Rie Okuno (Rie-chan, for short) and each the last friendly outpost for those embarking on this trek. Two blocks south of Naka-Meguro Station sits Sabbat. A stone's throw from Otorijinja crossing, on the other side of the wasteland, sits Gosse. And while it was not Rie-chan's intention to set up outposts on the edge of the desert, her love of animal prints lends itself well to this analogy.
Sabbat is decorated in zebra-print wallpaper; Gosse in leopard. Their eye-catching interiors give them a surreal quality, as if looming out of the night like a mirage. All one needs is a pith helmet to complete the image of being on safari.
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