Honey Shikuwasa

There are nights when you don't want to go home.

There are nights when you want to make noise.

There are nights when you want to listen.

Just before Muryoku Muzenji Temple, under the Koenji railway tracks, there is a strange restaurant.

It is an Indian/Nepalese restaurant so cheap that you worry about the collapse of costs.

Locals who speak fluent Japanese are walking around the restaurant, and broken orders are flying back and forth.

They serve naan, Indian curry, and various other international dishes.

But, yet, for some reason, the restaurant's name is "Matsuri Taiko."

In a world where katakana English is rampant, a foreign restaurant proudly displays Japanese.

What's even more strange is that they have a menu of sophisticated dishes that wouldn't even exist in an ordinary Japanese izakaya.

Where else in an Asian restaurant would you find umeshuisho (a dish of shark cartilage mixed with ume paste)? The appetizer is edamame.

This eccentric store quickly became one of my favorites, and I would often stop by on my way home from Muzenji Temple.
The staff even recognized me.

One day, I entered the store as usual and was looking at the drink menu, wondering what to get, when the staff member asked me with a grin.

"Honey shekwasha?"

I realized that this was, without a doubt, the place for me.