Restaurant Torie is located in Shinjuku’s Omoide Yokocho aka Piss Alley. Piss Alley is pretty famous and Anthony Bourdain made it more famous.
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It’s an alley (i.e., Yokocho) with a bunch of great dining and drinking options. The bars and restaurants are no larger than a truck bed, but it has so much character and charisma. Piss Alley is spot to get great late night yakitori in Shinjuku. Hence, why I stopped by Torie.
Torie has a bunch of your typical and taboo yakitori. In addition, it’s foreigner friendly with its English menus; furthermore, the staff is super friendly and nice. It’s a two story establishment and I definitely enjoyed every piece of yakitori I’ve tried here; the beers are pretty cheap and they have a large variety of yakitori. My only displeasure was they ran out of every single taboo yakitori I wanted to try.
Now, here is what I had:
- Salted Chicken – It’s was just grilled chicken thighs then lightly seasoned with salt. Now, that might not sound very exquisite, but it was perfection. The chicken wasn’t dried with the right amount of salt. It broke apart easily as I bit into it then my palate filled up with flavors of the chicken and then followed by the salt. It was simplicity at its best like Donald Trump’s brain.
- Chicken Skin – This was pure perfection. It’s grilled chicken skin on a skewer. It was tasty, flavorful, and lightly salted. The skin’s juiciness was the yakitori’s highlight like gossip columns on the internet.
Chicken Skin (left) and chicken thighs (right) - Fried Chicken Bites – This was incredible. The simple fried chicken was dipped in mayo; it was crispy, bite size, and addicting. The crispy batter gave me the initial crunch then my palate was overwhelmed by the tenderness of the chicken and then followed by the tangy and sweet Japanese mayo.
Restaurant Torie’s Chicken Bites - Sausages – The typical sausages found at any yakiniku or yakitori joint. I don’t know why, but these tasted a little bit better than the average. I think it had a lot to do with the environment and being in Omoide Yokocho. The sausages were juicy, sweet, sour and tender. Get your mind out of the gutter.
Restaurant Torie’s Sausages
Overall, it’s some of the best yakitori I’ve ever had in my life. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart cause the area does look very unsanitary. It took me 3 walk-through at 3 different times/days to get my Australian cousin to sit down and eat it. In other words, don’t be a pussy and live a little. A little diarrhea never killed anyone. That’s Ebola’s job!
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