A sophisticated bar run by a “strong-willed chef” who prepares piping hot iron plates… It’s kind of hidden away, but isn’t it a little hard to find in the first place?
Sake barrel sake is quite rare, so any old dude from Joshu should definitely go.
Hi, it’s “Drunk Uncle”!
Today I went to “Hideman” in Ota on my way home from work.
I come to Ota quite often for work, and it seems to be a company town for Subaru. Wikipedia says it is “the largest industrial city in the northern Kanto industrial region, with a manufacturing shipment value approaching 3 trillion yen.” Wow, that’s amazing… Although you can see Subaru’s impressive headquarters from Ota Station, I don’t have any connection to the secondary industry, so to be honest, I don’t really feel like it. There’s an industrial park on the outskirts, and I guess there are all kinds of things there, but I’m not sure.
What Drunk Uncle is familiar with is Ota’s “other industry,” or in other words, the “tertiary industry,” or more specifically, “Minami Ichibangai,” the most notorious entertainment district in northern Kanto, located just outside the south exit of Ota Station… In this town where many failures and regrets have been repeated, this may be the only night he has ever tasted bitterness…
Minami Ichibangai is also different from Utsunomiya Orion Street, which is also in northern Kanto… It has a bit of an exotic feel to it, like Oyama or maybe Koza in Okinawa, and I think it will appeal to those who like it (sniff).
As a town, it’s more of an adult entertainment district, meaning there are a lot of night-time establishments, so there aren’t many bars aimed at lazy old men, but if you dig around you’ll find a few, so I’ll introduce them to you…
Today’s location is “Hideman”, which is about a 5-minute walk from Ota Station, but it faces a road that is not usually used and faces the day after tomorrow, so I didn’t notice it until recently. Time flies, you see…
The appearance and exterior are good. The light feel and the sign are quite sophisticated. The menu, or rather the introduction text, is in the style of “Mitsuo” and is also nice. This is the kind of place where local yagios drink at the counter. It has the feel of a traditional Japanese restaurant, but I’ll go in and see…
I entered the store… There were no other customers… But the only sound in the store was the sound of the TV. There didn’t seem to be any staff members either… I kept calling out “Excuse me” but no one came out, I left the store once and violently opened and closed the door but no one came out. Maybe the chef had collapsed? I was thinking about whether I should call an ambulance or something when the chef appeared… His face looked like a pigeon that had been hit by a pea-shooter, so I guess the chef was taking a break (nap)?
…At this point, it was confirmed that this bar was run as a hobby by the master…
The master also seemed to be bored, so we had no choice but to drink and chat, right?
The inside of the restaurant has counter seats like this and a Japanese-style room in the back… It’s Saturday, but there are no customers at 7pm, which is quite something. There’s a large hot plate and, hey, barrels of sake… According to the chef, who has been in the business for 40 years, there is also “Hideman” in Kumagaya, which is run by the chef’s older brother. The chef of Ota also seems to have worked happily with his brother in Kumagaya, but now they are running separate businesses. Is it a difference in direction, a personality clash, or something else that happened… It’s a shame that I couldn’t delve into the “delicate zone” as this was my first time at the restaurant, so I’ll ask next time.
Apparently, the customer base is not Subaru employees, but mostly tourists. He has children and grandchildren, but he has not had them take over the restaurant, so it looks like “Hideman” will end with the owner. If anyone is interested in taking over the business…
As the chef tells us all about his unique style, we immediately order a barrel of sake. The sake is “Kenbishi” (Hyogo)… I wondered why it wasn’t a local Gunma sake, but it seems that “Kenbishi” is “more about the taste than the title,” and I wonder if that overlaps with the chef’s attitude… He takes out a white bowl-like pouring container from next to the barrel, removes the stem from the barrel, and pours with practiced hands. And then…
It is poured into a glass like this and served. Isn’t this pretty good? It’s a rather rare style in this day and age. I don’t know how to use the salt that comes with it, so I’ll just drink it… Gulp! It’s so lively to drink it with the scent of cypress…
If that’s the case, Otsumami will be next, right?
The menu is basically this, with grilled dishes and teppanyaki as the main dishes. As for drinks, they only serve beer, shochu, sake, plum wine, and other bitter drinks, and don’t have things like cassis soda or Kahlua milk, so be careful… If you want to drink “that kind of thing,” there’s a restaurant called Uotami in front of the station, which is part of the Monte Rosa Group, so you should go there, okay?
I ordered grilled scallops, grilled chicken, grilled green peppers, and yakisoba.
I watched the inside of the store while drinking. Here it is, the standard “Mitsuo” goods of the strong-willed independent bar, “A lifetime of emotion, a lifetime of youth by Mitsuo”. It’s a nice thing to say, but it’s a little embarrassing to see it written down, right…? You need to be mentally strong enough to drink with Mitsuo as your otsumami.
I’m excited to see the chef’s amazing skills on this huge iron plate in the restaurant… But wait… Chef! I guess he cooks peppers and other things in a frying pan on the gas stove in the back… Oh well, I guess I’ll just watch TV while drinking.
Ahh… green peppers are, well, green peppers. Nothing more, nothing less. Crunch them up, then gulp them down! Wash them down with some Kenbishi. Hmm, I no longer know if this goes well with sake or not.
I drank too much sake so I don’t remember much, but I think the chicken yakisoba and yakisoba were cooked on a hot plate in front of me…
Gulp! It’s great to wash it down with a barrel of sake. Time to pay and leave. Chef, I’ll come again.
Oops, I forgot something at the bar… I was going to go back to “Hideman” to get it, but… come on, boss, can you really close up shop in just 20 minutes? It’s only 9pm… this is a completely unprofitable place, should it be certified as one of the “Top 100 Restaurants with the Strongest Habits”?
Bar information
Hideman
Address: 634-1 Iida-cho, Ota-shi, Gunma
Payment method: Cash only, for sure
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