Close to yakitori glory

Or the notorious Shomben Yokocho (Piss Alley), in the shadowy underbelly of Shinjuku's frighteningly mammoth station - stations and yakitori-ya go hand-in-hand - so-called because until fairly recently it boasted no plumbing.

Steaming and utterly alien, crammed with little shacks only a couple of feet deep, each packed with boozing salarymen, it exerted an inexplicably magnetic pull. This is where Ridley Scott got the inspiration for Blade Runner's look, and it shows. But every time we tried to enter, we were met with scowling faces and aggressively crossed forearms, the unmistakable (and, to be fair, rare) Japanese signal for 'push off, foreigner'.

Ah well. Fortunately, this street food delicacy is available on these shores in a more user-friendly fashion. Paddington Basin's glamorous Yakitoria set the standard; now Dominic Ford - ex-Harvey Nichols, now of Battersea's Butcher & Grill and Tamesa@Oxo - brings us Bincho Yakitori in what used to be clever chef Richard Neat's lilac-hued failure.

The venture is a collaboration between Ford, ex-Oxo Tower chef and Japan fan David Miney, a chap from Fish! and the Bank Restaurants Group. We're talking heavy-hitters and major investment.

The kit alone must have cost big bucks: down one side is an open super-galley kitchen, fringed with Japanese charcoalfuelled grills (bincho is a superior, oakbased white charcoal) where a phalanx of chefs fan the coals to optimum temperature. On the other side is a killer Thames view.

In fact, the whole joint looks the part. It's hidden away in a tall building - I've wasted chunks of my life in faceless Tokyo tower blocks trying to figure out which of the dozens of Kanji-titled gaffs was the one I'd booked. It has a cleanliness of line which looks real. But the serried ranks of wooden furniture give it a clattery, dining hall quality that tells you it's not a million miles away from the fast-food ethic that spawned it.

At first glance, the menu looks outrageously cheap: skewers of yakitori and kushiyaki (basically, anything that's not bits of chicken) start at just 60p for onion, topping out at £2.60 for beef rib. But that really does only bring you one bijou skewer; anyone with an appetite would need at least ten of the blighters, as well as some starters, side dishes and rice to make a meal of it. Or was that just me?

Anyway, we got through pork belly (fatty, sticky, good); chicken liver (smoky, excellent); gizzard (undercooked and, well, gizzardy); chicken skin (not crisp enough); unagi (eel, meaty, rich and tasting authentically Japanese); chicken oyster (a real intensity of chicken flavour); the classic negima (chicken and spring onion); and an off-menu tsukune (minced chicken meatball often served with a raw egg yolk for dipping, but not here).

We were intrigued by the 'other chicken parts are available on request' part of the menu, since the birds seem to have been completely eviscerated. When we asked our gorgeous Japanese waitress what these might be, she pointed at her side. Or maybe her kidneys; we never found out.

We also dipped into the menu's fringes - it's fair to say that grilled, smoky, soy flavours get a bit samey by skewer number 12 - with varying success.

Mehikari, a Japanese white fish, was fried with seven spices, including sancho (Sichuan pepper); the fish was good, but seasoning lacked freshness. In fact, it bore a startling resemblance to the little boxes of shichimi that grace every table.

Fried tofu with good kimchi (fiery Korean pickle) didn't appear to have been fried at all. We loved buttery, garlicky rice and ochazuke, more rice topped with raw tuna and drenched with green tea. And fluffy little soya milk doughnuts were a fun way to finish. So we got our carbs in the end.

Depending on appetite, you could spend as much or as little as you like here: a couple of skewers and several beers, just like they do in a real Japanese izakaya, is entirely acceptable.

Or you could spend all evening watching the sun set over the river, ingesting an entire chicken or two, giblet to gizzard, while getting pleasantly toasted on sake or shochu, just like they do in the homeland. All this and fully-functioning plumbing - kampai!

Bincho Yakitori
2nd Floor, Barge House Street, SE1 9PH