Akakara – Spicy Nagoya-style Nabe

Restaurant Review by. Y. S.

I'm Korean, so I don't know much about Japanese local food. I was happy when a Japanese friend took me and another Korean friend to a Nagoya-style nabe restaurant in Shibuya. This restaurant is Akakara, which means 'red and spicy' in Japanese.

We went there around 8:00 pm on a Tuesday, but there were too many people, so we had to wait more than an hour. The atmosphere of the restaurant is lighthearted. At first we ordered ‘akakara nabe (￥1039) which is the representative dish of this restaurant. It is Nagoya-style nabe and we can select the level of spiciness from 0 to 10. Level 0 is not spicy and 10 is very spicy and we selected level 2. After a minute the clerk brought us a pot and he heated it. After about ten minutes, he told us we could eat. At first I ate soup and it tasted sweet and a little spicy. It reminded me of Korean soup which I love. And there were many vegetables and meats in the soup and it was very delicious. There are also many additional menu items (￥300~500), such as meat balls, kimchi, noodles and so on. If soup is not enough, you can get more free. Also there were many other Nagoya-style foods, and we ordered 'fried chicken wings' and 'grilled sesery (セセリ)'. They were very delicious too and good match for beer..

 Another good point of this restaurant is that there are many drinks. You can drink alcohol, such as beer (￥514), chu-hi (fruit soda spirits), highballs, cocktails, shochu, makgoli (all ￥451) and so on. If you don't like alcohol, you can drink tea, juice and soft drinks (￥336~378). Furthermore, you can eat desserts like sweets and ice cream. One of them is a Nagoya-style desert which is hot sweet potato and cold custard. I was too full to eat it, but it looked so delicious.

After we ate all foods, drinks and desserts, we were very happy, so we forgot waiting for more than 1 hour. My first time to have Nagoya food at Akakara has made me want to go to Nagoya. You can go to Akagara by walking for 7 minutes from the Hatchiko entrance of JR Shibuya station. If you want to eat Nagoya-style nabe and food, I recommend you go to Akakara.

Akakara ('赤から'渋谷本店 - 赤から鍋とセセリ焼き)

Address: First basement of Takayama Building 1−20−16, Jinnan, Shibuya-ku, Tōkyō-to 

東京都渋谷区神南１－２０－１６　高山ランドビルＢ１

Phone: 050-5815-6187

Hours: 15:00~23:30 (Last order: 23:00)

URL: http://www.akakara.jp/