The Leader of the Ichi Ryu Yatai Mura

My favorite Tokyo restaurant, the Ichi-Ryu Yatai-Mura in Kita-Shinagawa, is very capably run by Mutsumi F.  Mutsumi-san has always been so kind to me, ever since the very beginning of my visits to this wonderful place.  In return for this kindness, as well as always good food and drink, I have given this place my loyalty.  I have always wanted to take one of their boat cruises (they have one boat that is anchored off the deck in the back).  Their boat is appropriately named the "Mutsumi Maru".  One of these days, I will make it (I heard they have Karaoke available on the boat at nights - this also draws me to it!!!).

One of my favorite stories about Mutsumi-san is that one night I was having dinner in there with two friends, one of whom was Japanese.  At a table close by, a group of Japanese construction workers (complete with their fashionable baggy pants and special footware) were having a hard core drinking party.  We were later to find out they were celebrating the completion of one of those new Shinagawa Station area skyscrapers I talked about in a previous post.  There was probably eight of them, and they had a large water pitcher that they filled up with Shochu.  They would pass around the pitcher, and when it was your turn, you would stand up and chug that Shochu while the other clapped and said some kind of Japanese cheer.  It was heavy, heavy drinking, and these guys were getting very intoxicated.  Well after a little while, one of them comes over to our table and invites us to join them.  He was speaking in Japanese to our one local guy.  I thought hey this could be a very fun experience!!!  Drink with these local Japanese guys.  What a party!  Then what flashed through my mind though was how I knew my head would feel the following morning, and I did have business meetings the next day.

Just as all of these thoughts were swirling through my mind, Mutsumi-san, who was watching this whole exchange, quickly came over to our table and admonished the construction worker and told him to leave us alone.  She motioned him to go back to his table, which of course he did.  Mutsumi-san was looking after her loyal customer, and probably knew if we had entered into that madness it was not going to be a pretty sight.

Thank you Mutsumi-san for watching out for us, and for always being so nice each time I stop in for a meal.