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

[dorchadas]

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.

Tonkatsu in the back, chicken karaage on the left, umeboshi chicken on the right.

I hadn't eaten dinner so I got actual food--the karaage and umeboshi chicken were both mine. stephen_poon ordered shishito peppers and tonkatsu, and I had a few peppers and most of the chicken. The karaage was odd--it was made Japanese style but had bones in it like American fried chicken, so it was very difficulty to eat with chopsticks, though that didn't stop me from trying.

The umeboshi chicken was delicious and I need to figure out how to replicate the sauce. I already have umeboshi paste at home.

When I mentioned that, it led to a discussion about how "paste" was an extremely unappetizing word.

Looks like water, but.

This is Bushido, the draught sake mentioned on the board up above. Booze Box advertises itself as being one of the few places you can get draught sake in Chicago, so of course I had to give it a try. It was good, but I liked the Dreamy Clouds nigorizake we ordered second better.

lisekatevans especially liked the nigorizake but mentioned she was leery of any drink that looked cloudy, so that led to a discussion about food poisoning.


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.