Oicho is a fun, reasonably-priced upscale yakitori restaurant where you grill it yourself over a charcoal brazier at your table. The location is good, just west of the Matsubara Bridge over the Kamo River.
Going with your friends to a hole-in-the-wall yakitori restaurant with red lanterns and no elbow room and grease coating everything can be fun, but if you want to take a date somewhere nice and still enjoy the magical combination of grilled chicken and beer, Oicho is a terrific option with fancy sauces and salts. Everything is delicious, and the interior is lovely, too. Bar or table seating. Shoes on, real chairs, this is not a tatami place.