Experience “Shime” in Tokyo’s bar and pub Izakaya (w/Photos)
In Japanese culture, it is a custom to eat carbohydrates after drinking alcohol. This custom would be called “Shime” Shime means the end. What’s Shime menu like? If you wan to experience Shime, you shall read about it a bit before, so your experience would be much better one. This article is all about Shime to let you know what is about.
Experience Shinjuku’s backstreet bars, that are normally a little hard for Tourists to navigate – try this fun Tokyo Bar Hopping Nightlife Tour
Visiting Tokyo? Find out more cool nightlife places and things to do at night in Tokyo
What’s Shime menu like?
In Japan, eating food after drinking alcohol would be called Shime. Outside of Japan, people may eat pizzas, burgers and crisps after drinking so it may be similar to that.
The most popular Shime menu would be Ramen noddle. Buckwheat or Udon noodle would be recommended to people who think Ramen noodle would be too heavy for the stomach. Tea risotto is also well known.
Some other cities have their own popular menus. In Okinawa Japan, people would eat steaks and people in Hokkaido would have a parfait.
Recommended food for shime
１．The best Shime food – Ramen Noodle
When a human body digests alcohol, acetaldehyde that is an organic chemical compound would occur in the body. This compound is also one of the causes of hangover. Also it would damage kidneys so kidneys would want to change acetaldehyde to acetic acid, water and carbon dioxide. To do this, a body needs Alanine, Glutamic acid, Zinc and VitaminB1. When a person would not get those from food, while the person drink alcohol, the body would send a message to brain to have Shime (meal). That may be why ramen noodle is the best-suited menu, since it contains lots of ingredients.
≫Read more detail about The best Shime food – Ramen Noodle
２．Buckwheat / Udon noodle
Ramen noodle may be too oily for people who have sensitive stomach. For those people, I would recommend Buckwheat noodle instead. Buckwheat noodle can be eaten cold or hot. Also it can have it with additional toppings: deep-fried bean curd and deep fried batter chunks. Also Udon noodle is similarly good. The soup would be non-oil and soy souse based, easy to swallow due to its texture and easy to digest. You can add toppings as same as buckwheat noodle.
≫Read more detail about Buckwheat / Soba & Udon noodle
３．Recent trend – sweets
In Sapporo, Hokkaido, its popular Shime menu would be parfaits. Lately, people in capital city Tokyo started to copy the trend. Sweets would be popular amongst alcohol drinkers all over the world. Apart from parfaits, pancakes are also high in demand.
Other popular shime menu would be curry rice, curry noodle and steaks. Normal Izakaya menu consists a kettle rice (pot rice with toppings and seasoning) and rice balls. Why don’t you try them as well?
≫Read more detail about Recent trend – sweets
Try binge drinking experience tour in Shinjuku
The tour offers Tokyo Bar Hopping Nightlife Tour of 2 to 3 hours from 7 pm in Shinjuku area. The bilingual staff will guide you through the authentic Japanese style Izakaya bars. The price is about $70 including food and drinks.
