Izakaya near Shinagawa station.

One of my friends was leaving Japan (again) and we organized several good-bye dinners for him for various reasons. This first one we had at an Izakaya near Shinagawa station. I've forgotten the name and I can only remember that it was in the basement of one of the tall buildings on the east side exit of Shinagawa station. It was right beside a set of circular stairs and just outside there was a small garden and fountain that was shared with the building opposite. I know that the facing building had a Starbucks. And I seem to recall that we went to a Hokkaido chain restaurant on the 5th floor in the winter.

Aside from these horrible directions, the restaurant itself was memorable. There was a fireworks display on the ceiling (in lights and lasers with accompanying sound effects) and it had these backlit latterns up on one wall. The whole pit area was open concept so it seemed so spacious when you had one of the outside booths. They also had those small private, Japanese style, tattami rooms, but we had requested an outside booth to be able to enjoy the fake fireworks.

The place was busy for a weeknight. I remember watching one group of four being turned away at 7:30 pm and thinking how glad I was for my Japanese friends who had called in advance and booked our seats for the group. The place continued to be busy for the next hour or so when people actually started leaving.

We closed the place after trying a diversity of Japanese and Korean style plates and downing a good variety of Japanese alcohol. If I can find the email describing the place, the name and how to get there, I will include it when I fix up this post. But for now, you can enjoy the view of the purplish backlit latterns.