2015-03-29: Sports! As a Supporter

Sports Bars are a key feature of fandom

You always have to support the local Sports team. Even when you don't understand the sport. Most of the other fans don't either so it doesn't matter. The key things to be a fan are

1. Opinions
2. Know some names
• Ones to hate
• Ones to love
• Ones to blame
3. Drink the approved alcohol
4. Eat the approved food

We don't speak enough for 1&2 but we rock at 3&4.

Food & Beverage Review: Shogen Sports Bar (Fried food on a stick)

Crutches match Team Colours, we are die hard fans!

I don't understand baseball either.

Many of the Izakaya specialise in one style of food. This one does food on a stick, battered and deep fried (and wings because, Nagoya)

Probably the best Wings so far

You get a great big bowl of cabbage to dip in the sauce. This is great. Cabbage here is sweeter than Australia but not as dense as Poland

 They are ardent supporters of The Tigers. A mighty baseball franchise which won the game that was on the tele when we were there.

Fried food matches team colours.

Last time I was in Japan I had quail eggs, deep fried, on a stick which were still runny in the middle. They were excellent and also I can't figure out how they did it. When they shoved the stick in it should have pierced the yolk and all run out. Magicians of frying I tell ya. They didn't have the soft ones here. Theirs were okay but that's all

No Double Dipping! No Chopsticks in the sauce

Deep frying food is considered traditional here as it was introduced by the Dutch so long ago that they claim it as a traditional style of cooking, according to something I read once anyway.

Asparagus is its own stick, no sauce for this one. Instructions f

rom the waitress

This one only takes cash, as mentioned before getting cash with overseas cards can be tricky. We had 300 yen ($3) left over after paying the bill so I guess we planned that well. Getting to do the dishes in an Izakaya is pretty low on my list of Desired Cultural Experiences.

Rating 8.5/10 (Even though we later found out The Tigers are the despised team from Koshien. We have to find an Izakaya that supports The Dragons)

Worlds smallest carpark. With our remaining cash we could have rented a space for about an hour