The Thousands

The touch screen guy tipped us off. He’d just installed some hot screen at a new Japanese restaurant and karaoke bar in the CBD. On this basis we were convinced that Mizuya would be just like Shinjuku; the electric lights, the hidden restaurants, the sweaty microphones. Happily, it’s not far off.

You enter the restaurant from the thump of George Street (it’s next to The Metro). Stairs carve down into a Izakaya den filled with wooden booths. The (human) waiter quietly leads you to a table, introduces the touch screen and magics into the labyrinth. The clever screen knows exactly what you want. You want takoyaki, you want soft shell crab with lashings of wasabi, some lightly fried gyoza and thin slices of sashimi. You want a bottle of Sake. You want green tea ice cream. You don’t want karaoke facilities today, but you could have them if you did. You want so much that the final bill is a little expensive, but it’s cheaper than a trip to Tokyo and your touch screen doesn’t care for tips.