If You... Remember Summer Days in 黄昏のBay City

Last night, thanks to being told about it by houtarouh, I went out to Booze Box in the West Loop to listen to Van Paugam spin city pop and eat Japanese food and took stephen_poon, abby_the_hairapist, and lisekatevans along with me. stephen_poon and abby_the_hairapist had gone to a similar event last month on a Friday and told me that it was immensely crowded and they didn't stay very long, but going on a Thursday worked out for us. We arrived and stood around for a bit before abby_the_hairapist flagged down a server and, on hearing that we wanted food, they showed us to a table and we took a seat.

On the way in.

There was no DJ booth or anything, but there was definitely city pop coming through the speakers. I don't know much about it other than Mariya Takeuchi (who wrote "Plastic Love"), but stephen_poon mentioned that a lot of the music reminded him of an old action anime's ED. I kept trying to make out the lyrics, but it's harder for me to understand music in Japanese and also it was in a crowded izakaya with people talking all around us, so "a lot of stuff about love" is about all I got. Sadly, I can't seem to find a set list anywhere online.

The server told us that the kitchen was about to close but that he'd put in our orders before then, so we ordered real food to go with our drinks.

( One food picture and one drink picture )

The noise level was low enough that it didn't feel overwhelming, and Booze Box is the first izakaya I've been in that looks like a Japanese izakaya, all dark wood and small tables set on raised bits of floor tucked into the corners, with dim lighting coming from chōchin-style red lanterns. But we all had to work the next day, some of us earlier than others (up at 6:30 for me...), so after a couple hours we called it a night and went home. But you, going out on a weeknight was pretty nice. Getting up this morning was harder than usual, but I don't feel excessively tired.

Hopefully that continues into the future.