Cheap and Delicious Chicken

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Americans!
What does every good Thanksgiving need? Turkey! Unfortunately, getting turkey in Ibaraki can be either: A. Difficult
B. Expensive
If you want a full Thanksgiving plate with turkey, ham, and mashed potatoes, then I highly recommend ordering one from the Drunken Duck Mito or Hitachinaka. Their Thanksgiving plate is fantastic.
For those of you who want to make your own Thanksgiving feast at home but can't get a turkey. The next best thing is chicken. Sure, you can go to Costco and buy a roastery chicken at Costco, but even though the Costco chicken is delicious, I always found it to be too oily. Luckily, there is one more place in Ibaraki where you can buy a whole chicken or just drumsticks. Today, I will be talking about Joso City's very own Kurosawa Roasted Chicken.

Kurosawa Roasted Chicken

Kurosawa Roasted Chicken is located in the Motoishige area of Joso City. Kurosawa is a take-out only place that sells exclusively chicken. They do have eggs from local farmers as well.
Kurosawa was recently on a Japanese TV show and that is why Mrs. Ibaraki Eats wanted to check it out. That and her mother asked us to buy her some chicken and bring it to Naka City. So one fine Sunday morning, we woke up early and headed to Joso. My wife had heard that Kurosawa usually sells out of chicken around noon and that there were long lines in the morning. So we got in our car and headed to Joso to buy some chicken.
The trip to Joso was long but it was cool to see the small castle that Joso has. Once we got past the castle, we entered into some side streets full of houses. The street was a little narrow so we had to be careful while driving. Once we got to Kurosawa, we pulled into Kurosawa's parking lot, which was filling up at 11:00am, parked our car and headed inside.

Inside and the Menu

When you walk into Kurosawa, it isn't a relaxing stroll through the chicken place where you can take your time and look at what is available. It is a place with a long line, and a group of ladies behind the counter who have no time for you to leisurely check out the place. When we walked in, my wife and I stopped at the counter, and before we could even look at the glass counter area, which is the menu, the ladies asked us for our order. Mrs. Ibaraki Eats was a little surprised by that and looked inside the glass counter for a few seconds before ordering.
In the glass counter, there are chicken wings, chicken drumsticks, whole chicken legs, and whole chickens. All of the chicken selections are reasonably priced. A chicken drumstick is just 80 yen.
Kurosawa also sells eggs and a few other things that, in my opinion, were not of note. This was a chicken place, and that is what they advertised. We ended up buying a bunch of chicken drumsticks, wings, and a few whole chickens.
The ladies behind the counter moved at the speed of light, wrapped up all our chicken, and gave us a few bags with our chicken inside. The whole experience, from ordering to receiving our chicken, probably took less than five minutes.
Once we got in our car, a line formed out the door. We had beaten the rush and were on our way back to Tsuchiura.

Drumsticks and Wings

When we got home, it was time to have some drumsticks and wings. The chicken from Kurosawa is already cooked, so all you have to do is heat it up. We heated some drumsticks and wings and decided to have them for lunch. I am sorry about the picture. I completely forgot to take a picture of the wings. What I can tell you about the wings is that they weren't too bad. Not a lot of meat on them, and the skin was a little bit too rubbery, but other than that, not a bad wing.
The drumsticks were a bit bitter than the wings. The skin was still rubbery, and it had a salty taste to it, but the meat was soft and succulent. The drumsticks were pretty tasty and great to share with friends. Not the best drumsticks I have had in Japan, but not bad.

Whole Chicken

After we had our drumsticks and wings for lunch, we decided to have a whole chicken for dinner. This was a brilliant decision since that whole chicken was delicious. I was worried that Kurosawa's whole chicken would be as oily as Costco's chicken, but it wasn't. I was also worried that the skin would be rubbery and salty like the drumsticks and wings, but it was not like that at all. Everything about this chicken was great! Mrs. Ibaraki Eats cut off some of the chicken breast, and we tried that first. Even though we just heated this chicken up, the meat was still tender and juicy. Every bite of that whole chicken was amazing. Some Ibarakians may disagree with my next statement, but if I had a choice between Costco and Kurosawa, I would go for Kurosawa. Great chicken, Kurosawa!

After we finished our own chicken, we went to my wife's parents' house the next day and delivered their chicken order. They loved the whole chicken as much as we did. They told us the next time we were in Joso to please buy more chicken. No argument from me on that.

Kurosawa, you make great chicken, and we hope to buy more of your chicken soon. We may even buy some of your chicken to celebrate Thanksgiving Day.
So if you are looking for turkey but can't find any for Thanksgiving, why not get the next best thing and buy a whole chicken from Kurosawa Roasted Chicken? Who knows? You might see us there. Buying a few whole chickens to take home for ourselves and for my in-laws.
Enjoy!

For more information on Kurosawa Roasted Chicken, check out their web page:
https://ishikora.com/kurosawa/