Beneath Momotaro The City S Other New Izakaya

• Michael Gebert
• The Izakaya at Momotaro

Like comrade Sula, whose review of Bucktown’s new Izakaya Mita went live last week, I’ve long had an interest in the idea of the izakaya, the Japanese bar with a menu of compatible drinking foods, though my divergent experiences often left me confused about what izakaya fare typically was. So when Momotaro’s main floor opened in October, I was eager to hear what reviewers would think of the food at its downstairs izakaya with a separate kitchen, set to open a week or two later.

What works at the Izakaya at Momotaro is the food. We ordered off the izakaya menu as well as from the grilled section of the main menu—which, so far as I know, would be pretty typical for an izakaya. And everything ranged from as good as you hoped to significantly better than you expected. (I suppose this is the place to say that, though my previous report was based on a media invite, this was a standard, paid-for-by-us night out.)