Finding your local 'neighborhood pub'? (Tokyo)

Hi,
I haven't been long in Japan so please excuse if the question is silly.
But as a Tokyo metro area small town resident how can you go about finding say, your local neighborhood pub - or is it all 'izakaya' / yakitori ? (Any tips about those?)
Google maps proves extremely unhelpful as my kanji knowledge is still limited, strolling through the neighborhoods I encounter the same problem (hey even names and logos can be really misleading!)
Any good tips?
Thank you :)