Skewered, breaded, fried — and never double-dip the sauce.
What it is
Kushikatsu (also kushiage) are breaded, deep-fried skewers — bite-size beef, prawn, quail egg, lotus root and dozens of vegetables, coated in fine panko and fried to order. Each is dipped once in a shared tub of thin Worcestershire-style sauce. The one rule: no double-dipping.
What it means
A working-class icon of Osaka's Shinsekai that Tokyo refined into elegant kushiage counters, fried one piece at a time. Raw cabbage on the table is both palate cleanser and (traditionally) your sauce 'spoon'.
Why it's wonderful
Light, hot and endlessly varied — the batter is barely there, so each skewer tastes of its ingredient. The omakase rhythm of one perfect skewer after another is half the fun.
A reservation-only Ginza counter where an entirely gluten-free kushiage omakase is fried in rice oil with rice-flour breadcrumbs — a rare safe haven for coeliacs.
The towering wooden-beamed izakaya that inspired Kill Bill's House of Blue Leaves, where lantern light conjures an Edo-era warehouse over plates of fresh soba and charcoal skewers.
