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Kinda Izakaya in Berkeley now open for late-night Japanese bar meals, shochu cocktails

Ever tasted a Japanese Hogwarts cocktail? Now you can at Kinda Izakaya, a brand new restaurant in Berkeley specializing in Japanese bar meals and quirky shochu drinks.

Kinda is in its tender opening and is testing out late-night hours that ought to enchantment to the UC Berkeley crowd (open till 11 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday and midnight Friday-Saturday, in keeping with Instagram). The area on College Avenue is heat and comfortable, with wooden accents, traditional Japanese posters and a sprawling bar. “Drink Sake / Keep Kinda” instructions an indication, and sure, a wide range of sake bottles line the rafters – there’s Born Gold muroka (unrefined sake), Michinoku Onikoroshi “Demon Slayer” (dry sake) and far more.

Kinda Izakaya is a brand new late-night restaurant in Berkeley that does Japanese bar meals equivalent to grilled skewers, fried hen, sashimi and shochu cocktails. (John Metcalfe/Bay Space Information Group) 

The menu affords a horde of appetizers designed to match together with your beverage of selection. There are requirements like shumai and gyoza, shishito peppers with yuzu salt and dashimaki tamago, and lesser-seen dishes like sake-roasted pork stomach and sauteed kinoko mushrooms. From the deep fryer comes crispy hen, tofu, squid legs and vegetable tempura, and different menu sections are dedicated to noodle soups, rice dishes and sashimi and carpaccio. And naturally there are rice balls and grilled skewers like beef tongue, hen coronary heart, okra, eggplant and bacon-wrapped enoki mushrooms.

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