shops

Kushikatsu Tanaka serves Osaka-style kushikatsu, skewers coated in batter and deep-fried, five minutes from Seibu-Shinjuku Station in Kabukicho. Skewers run from ¥88 for a sausage to ¥352 for large prawn (tax included), and assorted sets of five or eight are also on the menu. The restaurant has 56 seats at counters and tables, and a PDF menu printed in English, Chinese and Korean is available. It stays open until 3:00 from Monday to Thursday and until 4:00 from Friday to Sunday, and the house rule is that the shared sauce must not be dipped twice.

Good to know

• Guests aged 20 or over pay a ¥319 (tax included) cover charge each, even without alcohol, and must order at least one drink.
• Do not dip a skewer in the sauce twice. The sauce is shared within your group and discarded afterwards.
• People under 20 can enter without an adult, but are not served alcohol. Staff may ask for identification.
• The all-you-can-eat plan is only for Monday to Thursday arrivals before 18:00 and must be booked by the day before. Guests aged 20 or over are charged the adult rate that includes all-you-can-drink alcohol even if they do not drink.
• There is no smoking booth at this branch.
• Reservations can be made online at any time, and walk-ins are accepted, but booked guests are seated first.
• No free Wi-Fi, no kids' chairs, no parking and no lunch menu.

Kushikatsu Tanaka serves Osaka-style kushikatsu, skewers coated in batter and deep-fried, three minutes from the North Exit of Okachimachi Station. Skewers run from ¥88 for a sausage to ¥352 for large prawn (tax included), and assorted sets of five or eight are also on the menu. The restaurant has 57 seats across counter, table, tatami and box seating, and a PDF menu printed in English, Chinese and Korean is available. The house rule is that the shared sauce must not be dipped twice.

Good to know

• Guests aged 20 or over pay a ¥319 (tax included) cover charge each, even without alcohol, and must order at least one drink.
• Do not dip a skewer in the sauce twice. The sauce is shared within your group and discarded afterwards.
• People under 20 can enter without an adult, but are not served alcohol. Staff may ask for identification.
• The all-you-can-eat-and-drink plan is only for Monday to Thursday arrivals before 18:00 and must be booked by the day before.
• There is no smoking booth at this branch.
• Reservations can be made online at any time, and walk-ins are accepted, but booked guests are seated first.
• No free Wi-Fi, no parking, and no lunch menu.

A monja restaurant on the third block of Monja Street which gives its founding year as 1950, and says it started when the family was cooking monja in the corner of a sweet shop just after the war. The building has since been rebuilt, but the shop says it has kept the original recipe.

It opens at 17:00 on weekdays and 11:30 at weekends, and closes at 22:00 every day of the year. Courses have to be booked two days ahead, directly with the shop.

Good to know

• There is no lunch service on weekdays.
• Courses must be booked two days ahead.
• Prices are not published.
• Yoshimiya on the same street says it is the oldest monja shop there, so the two shops' claims differ.
• Listed by the Tsukishima Monja Association; the shop has no site of its own.

A sushi house on the edge of the outer market, with 16 counter seats on the first floor and a further 10 counter seats and 8 table seats upstairs. Every seat is non-smoking.

The evening is short here: the door opens at 17:00, the last guests are seated at 19:30, and the shop closes at 20:30 with last orders at 20:00. It is closed on Wednesdays. Bookings are taken from 17:00, though the number of reservable seats is limited.

Good to know

• Closed on Wednesdays.
• The last guests are seated at 19:30, whatever day you come.
• Bookings are taken from 17:00, but only for a limited number of seats.
• There is no parking.

The deep-fried skewer chain's Higashi-Ginza branch, a minute from Exit A7, with 54 seats across counter, table, tatami and booth seating. It is one of the few places in this part of Ginza still serving at 1:00, from Tuesday to Saturday, and it opens at noon at weekends.

Skewers are dipped in a shared pot of sauce, and the house rule is that you may not dip a second time. Guests aged 20 or over pay a ¥319 cover charge, which brings a refillable plate of cabbage and sauce, and must order at least one drink.

Good to know

• Guests aged 20 or over pay a ¥319 (tax included) cover charge each, even without alcohol, and must order at least one drink.
• Dipping a skewer in the sauce a second time is not allowed.
• Under-20s may come in on their own, but no alcohol is served to them and ID may be checked.
• This branch has no indoor smoking booth.

The branch where Jojoen started, a minute from Exit 4a of Roppongi Station, serving yakiniku at table seats partitioned to feel like private rooms. There are two pair seats, ten tables and one private room, 52 seats in all.

Last orders are at 3:00 in the morning from Monday to Saturday, and at 22:00 on Sundays and public holidays. Every seat is non-smoking, heated tobacco and e-cigarettes included, and there is a smoking area elsewhere on site.

Good to know

• A 5 percent service charge is added, except on the lunch menu and takeaway.
• Every seat is non-smoking, including heated tobacco and e-cigarettes. There is a separate smoking area on site.
• Sunday and public holiday last orders are at 22:00, five hours earlier than the rest of the week.
• The restaurant notes that the seat you ask for may not be available depending on bookings.

The Kaminarimon branch of the same Turkish kebab shop, a short walk from the Kaminarimon gate, open until midnight every day.

The menu is the same as the Nishi-Asakusa branch: kebab sandwiches from ¥550, wraps, rice plates, and larger dishes such as doner kebab and lahmacun.

Good to know

• Closing days are not published on the shop's own site.
• The seat count is not published for this branch.

Torikizoku is a yakitori chain where every food item costs the same, and this branch is three minutes north-west of the Hachiko Exit of Shibuya Station, on the fourth floor of the Center Building in Shibuya Center-gai. Everything on the food menu is ¥410 including tax, as printed in the 2026 autumn-winter English menu. The grill menu includes momo and mune kizoku-yaki skewers, fried chicken, a griddled yam dish, chicken kamameshi and chicken paitan ramen. There are 3 counter seats and 55 table seats, and the restaurant serves until 4:00 in the morning, or 5:00 on Friday and Saturday.

Good to know

• People under 20 cannot come on their own. They may enter with a guardian or someone aged 20 or over, on condition that no alcohol is served to them, and staff may ask for identification.
• Reservations are for two hours. Branches running an opening sale do not take reservations.
• There are no private rooms; tables are only divided by partitions.
• The official pages do not state whether there is a cover charge, nor whether the restaurant is non-smoking. The branch page shows no indoor smoking booth and no outdoor smoking area.
• Opening hours change on some days. The branch page listed 3 and 23 November as days with different hours.
• Takeout has to be ordered by the day before.
• No baby chairs, no barrier-free access and no parking.

Isomaru Suisan is a seafood izakaya one minute from JR Shinjuku Station, and it is open 24 hours a day all year round. Its signature is isomaru-yaki, shellfish taken live from the tank and crab miso in the shell, grilled in front of you at the table. Sashimi and other small dishes are also on the menu, and lunch is served as well. The restaurant has 93 seats, free Wi-Fi and a smoking booth, with all other seats non-smoking.

Good to know

• Individual dish prices are not published for this branch; the chain notes that menu contents and prices differ by restaurant.
• The official page does not say whether there is a cover charge, an English menu or an age limit.
• Seating is non-smoking and there is a separate smoking booth.
• There is no parking.

Chiba-chan is a taishu-sakaba, a large everyday drinking restaurant, on the third floor of a building in the Ameyoko market area about three minutes from JR Ueno Station. Small dishes start at ¥110 and chicken or pork skewers are ¥132 each (tax included), and the restaurant is known for its baka-mori portions, which it describes as three times the normal size, and dai-baka-mori at ten times. There are 180 seats with tables and sunken kotatsu seating, an English menu, and courses with 120 minutes of all-you-can-drink. On Fridays and Saturdays it stays open until 5:00 the next morning.

Good to know

• A table charge of ¥473 (tax included) per person is added to the bill, so the total comes to more than the listed prices.
• Each person is asked to order at least one drink.
• Orders placed after 22:00 carry a 10% late-night charge.
• Electronic money cannot be used. PayPay is the only QR code payment accepted.
• All seats are non-smoking, and there is a separate smoking room.
• The restaurant states that it does not use touts, and asks you to contact the shop if someone on the street claims to work for it.
• Food and drink orders stop at 23:00 on the days it closes at 23:30, and at 4:00 on the nights it stays open until 5:00.