About a mile from Yokota AB is a rock bar and venue

[The Polack MSgt]

What the Japanese call a Live House. It's called Chicken Shack and I am positive there are folks in this forum who remember it.

My friend Nozomu owns it and I have been a customer since 1983 (Off and on of course) but when he remodeled the stage and seating area. he wired it up and now he makes indy records in the joint.

I've posted songs from his band (Save Our Soul) here before, but this is not him, it's an artist on his label

His label is called Fussa Rhythm, his wife and he have a YouTube channel and merch and all those things that small businesses need to stay alive in these days of lockdown.

Anyway - I like this new record

And more stuff available at his channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7dLhnhpoalyrPqMDvgqX6A

[3catwoman3]

1. I was stationed at Yokota AB in 1978-79. There was a large restaurant...

...known as Chicken Fussa, within walking distance out of the main gate.

My first date with my now-husband (he was my next-door neighbor in the BOQ) was at Chicken Fussa. Several of us from the base went together. Very extensive menu, with handy English translations. Among the items we ordered was "Braised Mushrooms," which sounded quite appealing - or so we thought. A strange, bemused grin was noticed on the face of the waitress when we pointed to this item.

A small porcelain bowl arrived, containing something that looked and smelled like fish bait. We discovered we had made an American-centric error by assuming that the English language item names were listed first, and the Japanese was under each item name. What we had pointed to, rather than braised mushrooms, was "Special Salted Raw Fish Guts." Pink and slimy, and smelled awful. We did not eat it.

Valuable and amusing lesson learned.

[The Polack MSgt]

2. Sounds like Ika no Shiokara - You eat it on top of hot rice - It's a seasoning more than an entree

But for us, yeah it's gross. Until (Unless?) you can build up a tolerance for very sharp fermented flavors.

I do remember Chicken Fussa, but this isn't that place.

Nozomu bought an old snack bar on the Aka Sen in 1982 gutted it put in a stage and named it chicken shack after the English blues rock band.

[3catwoman3]

3. I didn't think it was the same place. It just brought back an amusing...

...memory that we have shared with others many times over the years. I am reasonably adventurous from a culinary standpoint, but this stuff was repellant. The only sushi I have tried that I did not like was sea urchin gonads (uni, IIRC?) - they felt furry and tasted terrible.

Our favorite place was a very small sushi restaurant called Seto's. Room for maybe 12, at most. We went there all the time. The sushi was excellent, and Setosan also did tempura that was incredibly light and crispy. His brother worked with him, and was licensed to prepare blowfish, which I was never brave enough to try.

Not real keen on the red bean paste that is part of some desserts, either.

We did notice that many Japanese pastries were exquisite to look at, but extremely bland when it came to flavor.

I totally LOVE green tea ice cream!