The Ultimate Nagoya Pub Crawl, Part Two

By Adam Miller

In my everlasting quest to appease you, my trusty reader (there's a reason why I'm not using the plural there...), I am attempting to discover decent pub crawl routes throughout this fair city. Getting drunk so you don't have to: am I a saint or what?

The first stop on this new crawl was to the ever-popular Shooters in Fushimi. For those of you who don't know Shooters - or know it, but for the wrong reasons - it's a big place with one of the longest bars you'll find in an Aichi pub. It has pool, darts and an awesome Marvel Universe arcade machine (although the right stick is a little dodgy and a bit of a handicap for Player 2). The food here is pretty darn good, but the drinks are on the pricey side and they prefer bill service to cash-on-delivery, which can make things difficult if you're in untrustworthy or thirsty company, as people often split hairs when they should be splitting the bill. Shooters is always lively, though, and it has a good selection of bottled beer and cocktails. I've never been in here and seen either the darts or the pool table free, but if you're persistent/brave enough to queue up then I'm sure you could get a couple of frames in.

Unfortunately, this pub crawl had a bad pub-to-crawl ratio - five pubs and about five hours of walking. OK, I exaggerate, but I was with an American who enjoys walking as much as English people enjoy American Football, and I feel it necessary to voice his concerns. Anyway, our next stop was the Sakae Hub, a rowdy place that's never quiet. This Hub is far from my favorite, but only because I am allergic to new people and make friends as well Dan Brown makes literature. If, however, you are looking to find new friends - perhaps outside of the Platonic definition - then this could be the place for you. You can also get cheap drinks and food at Hub - I had an awesome Single Malt called Highland Park, which was only ¥680.

Next up was a little overlooked bar called Bar Mexigan. It might not serve the best Mexican food in Nagoya (Desperados and Los Tacos are still dueling to the death for that title), but there are some cheap drinks, decent grub and more plasma screens than bar staff. It's also just over the road from the Hub so it's perfect for this pub crawl route. On the way over there's a cool little cigar shop, which caters for connoisseurs and show-offs alike. Bar Mexigan really comes into its own during happy hour, when you can pick up some really excellent cocktails for next to nothing, but as this ends at 19:00 you'll have to start early to make it a part of your pub crawl.

Stop number four was BJs, an American diner with suggestive initials built on the corpse of St James' Gate. My ex-favorite bar in Nagoya, I still wake up hoping the past year of my life was a nightmare and that the Gate will open again. As for BJs, it's decked out with darts, table football, a big bar, and a moderate drink and food menu. But most important to my male reader ("Hello!") will be the fact that the girls here are always wearing cowgirl outfits so small you can almost see the Grand Canyon! On Fridays there is allegedly a pole dancer, but I'm not at liberty to say how enjoyable that is/was. All seemed to be going well in BJs, but then the bill came... we got charged for disgusting popcorn AND there was a service charge on top, so beware - otherwise fists could fly in the Wild West.

The last stop on our Nagoya tour was Red Rock, which necessitated another overlong walk. Red Rock is a cool Australian bar and an ideal venue for private functions. Until recently they had a pub quiz here every Thursday, but that died a death due to poor attendance, though enough badgering from you pesky lot might well resurrect it! The drinks here are far from expensive, and they have Yebisu Creamy Top, which is plain delicious. The bar staff are cool and the clientele are usually friendly enough too, but the best thing about Red Rock is its location. There are loads of decent clubs around here - I went to Café Domina dressed as Alex from A Clockwork Orange for Halloween and it was one of my favorite nights of 2009. It's a gay bar and if hairy arm-pitted transvestites or latex lady gimps scare you, it might not be for you... I've only been on Halloween, and it may not always be that colorful, but having a group of Japanese dudes sing "Singing in the Rain" to me was pretty sweet.

By this point I was rather worn out and drunk, and my English blood was screaming for a kebab! Luckily there's a great place where a doner is only ¥500. I was too far gone to remember its name, though…any readers anal enough to write in will get a signed photograph of Yours Truly (Yours Truly is a Korean pop star).

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