Izakaya in Sapporo Part3 札幌の居酒屋パート3

4. Izakaya Aiyo Tanuki-koji 4 chome 粋な居酒屋あいよ狸小路4丁目店

札幌市中央区南2条西4丁目清水ビルBF1

Shimizu Bldg BF1
Minami 2 Nishi 4, Chuo-Ku
Sapporo

For reservation 011-206-4239, Creadit card accepted, Smoking allowed
Order by QR code (need smart phone with internet access)

This is a chain izakaya. It appears that there are 7 company owned and 2 franchised stores in Sapporo. They emphasize the fresh seafood of Hokkaido. The name “Aiyo” is a bit of slang used mostly by trade people and means “OK” or “Got it”. It has an uncanny similarity to the English word “Aye” used as Irish slang.

This was also by far the noisiest izakaya we visited. It was noisy not because of the customers but because loud shouting between the servers was an established part of the ambiance of the place. The young servers appear to have been encouraged to shout as loud as possible to each other and in unison rather than talk. For example, when serving the Kaisen-don 海鮮丼 they serve a large amount of sashimi piled on top of the rice. Then topped that by spooning ikura on the top of the piled sashimi all right at the table while loudly shouting “Aiyo” in unison. This reminded us of another izakaya we went to some years ago (might have been another branch of the same chain). Another interesting thing was their way of cerebrating a customer’s birthday. (Quite a few customers seemed to have birthdays the day we were there) They turned off all the lights and brought out a  birthday dessert plate with sparklers on it accompanied by some loud shouts, of course. The entire experience was auditory chaos. 

The food order was done by QR code. Our young servers appeared a bit worried that we (old folks) could handle this. “No worry, Aiyo (I got it).” The servers were all young, loud,  and very friendly wearing name tags. I started ordering using my smart phone. I ordered sake and sashimi first but for some reason, the fried potato appeared first and we had to wait some time for the sashimi.

This was sort of steak fries and it was really good. The sake selection was not extensive but it sufficed. Another interesting thing about this place was the entrance to the bathrooms. They were entered through a secret door in a wall of shelves with large sake bottles on them (#2) The shelves parted in the middle opening to a hallway leading to the bathrooms. (I assume the bottles were empty).

Although the food and sake were quite decent, we were a bit tired of the loud noise and decided to retreat. When we were leaving we saw quite few people waiting outside. 

After we got back to our hotel, we stopped at the lounge which was (thankfully) very quiet. We had a flute of Moët Chandon and a chocolate parfait  (#3) which became my wife’s favorite way to end the evening. After a lovely dinner at an izakaya we would stop at the lounge for our champaign and chocolate parfait desert night cap. The parfait was basically a lovely chocolate mouse with a scoop of chocolate ice cream, and some chocolate and cookie wafers on top. The lower layers of the parfait were different kinds of chocolate mouse with nice little crunchies. The last layer was crunchy chocolate cake. We really enjoyed sharing this with the flute of champaign as a quiet end to the evening .