Yaki-tori

Yaki-tori is a popular style of food, especially among businessmen after work, ideal for consumption with a cold beer. It consists of chicken or chicken parts (liver, mince, etc.) grilled on skewers. It is most commonly written or in Chinese characters (the insertion or omission of the is optional, yet another source orthographic variation). The following example shows the type of red lantern commonly found outside traditional popular eating and drinking establishments with the words yaki-tori in Chinese characters:

Yaki-tori Yakitori

Just around the corner was an example of less traditional signage with the same words yaki-tori in hiragana, as below:

Yaki-tori Shiriusu Yakitori Shiriusu

A Google search in August 2003 found the following distribution for yaki-tori on the Internet. Yaki-niku is also shown by way of comparison:

Form	No. of occurrences	Form	No. of occurrences
	502,000		533,000
	68,500		576,000
	46,500		10,900
	7,640		2,930
	4,660		378
	2,430		2,820

is much more common than . (See also yaki-niku and yaki-soba).