Feast of sake

Had it not been for a local sake-tasting contest in Japan's Ibaraki prefecture in 1997, Beijing would have been poorer in its culture of izakaya, a lounge-style sake restaurant where people gather to drink and eat.

Taka Yamamoto, general manager and sake master of Sake Manzo in Chaoyang district, was on the verge of completing his bachelor's in computer engineering, when he entered and won the Ibaraki leg of the KIKI Sake National Championships. As a reward, his mentor took him on a tour of a sake brewery. Yamamoto was mesmerized by what he saw.

His love for the popular Japanese rice-based alcoholic beverage and his mission to increase its popularity abroad, saw him set up shop in Beijing in 2004, after quitting a lucrative marketing job at Morita, a sake brewery owned by the family of Sony's co-founder Akio Morita.