New Torigin Ginza

Nearing the end of our Japan trip, my family and I had tried most genres of Japanese cuisine but I hadn’t introduced my parents and sister to yakitori yet. Seeing as a lot of yakitori places in Japan tend to be of the after work eat fast with a beer places, I turned to my trusty Unilocal app to find somewhere with less time pressure and hopefully less smoke of the cigarette variety!
Happily, it alerted me to New Torigin, which was a short stroll from our hotel in Shinbashi and within the main Ginza shopping district. The Unilocal app is also very useful for helping to navigate to the restaurant, which is in an alleyway off the street. You’ll see the big red standing sign for a the original Torigin first and right next to it in the alleyway at 90 degrees is New Torigin
The tables are spread out over 3 floors and we were seated immediately despite arriving on Sunday evening without a reservation
We received the usual warm welcome as expected at any Japanese establishment — I think they even outdo the Americans at this. A lovely blast of cooking smells from the grill right at the entrance helps to stimulate the appetite
In Japan, yakitori places specialise in chicken though there was also duck on the menu here. We chose a combination set and supplemented with sticks of kawa (chicken skin), reba (liver) and gizzard. You can choose whether the sticks are seasoned with salt or barbecue sauce. We agreed the salt was the better foil for the grilled meat as it enhanced the umami flavour so beloved in Japanese cooking. The meat was cooked well and was still very moist
We also tried the other dish on the menu, kamameshi. It’s a rice dish cooked in stock in a iron pot and topped with different meat, fish and vegetables. We went with the combination on the menu and it arrived with a nice combo of shiitake mushroom, chicken, bamboo shoots, prawns and crab. It had a savoury flavour and some nice crunchy rice at the bottom
A good solid and reasonably priced yakitori place, especially considering the location. The total cost for 4 of us came to 4700 yen

A hole-​in-​the-​wall restaurant in the back alleys of Ginza.
New Torigin was my go-​to yakitori and kamameshi restaurant whenever I go shopping in Ginza…
Although this place is closer to a ‘drinking place’, this place used to be open during lunch so when I was a little kid, my grandma and mother would take me here for lunch after a long shopping day… talking about memories!
Anyways, my favorite is their tori-​kamameshi and their yakitori’s are all very delicious. I usually order their ‘yakitori’ in shio and their tebasaki.
They so an amazing job cooking the yakitori, they know not to over cook it, always very juicy and never under cooked. They use good chicken so if you like chicken and want to enjoy the taste fully, I suggest you order the yakitori in shio.
Cons:
— Again, this restaurant has an old school Japanese bar vibe, and it’s definitely not ‘non-smoking’…it gets pretty smokey if there’s smokers… it doesn’t help they the restaurant is tiny either… it doesn’t take many cigarette to fill the place.
— only open for dinner
**simple and sweet**
— The best yakitori/​kamameshi place I’ve been to so far.
— If you like simple dishes to enjoy the goodness of the ingredients, try their tori-​kamameshi, and the yakitori and shio.
— their tebasaki is a winner.
— If you want Kamameshi and Yakitori for lunch, check out Torigin Honten~!