Tokyo Food Guide
- Selina Luong
- May 13, 2020
- 14 min read
One of my most favorite things about Tokyo is the amazing food. Regardless of whether a restaurant has below or above a four star rating online, the food is most likely delicious all the same. This is because Japanese people hold very high and strict safety standards for food, especially when it comes to raw ingredients or raw seafood, and they prefer using fresh and natural ingredients in their foods. Besides fast food places, you won't really find any restaurants serving dishes made of processed ingredients.
There are more than 200 Michelin star restaurants in Tokyo, which you can find here, but there are also hundreds of non-Michelin star restaurants that are just as great. Below are some restaurants and cafes that I loved and my review and rating for each of them! Out of all of the places I ate at in Tokyo, my top favorites are Shin Udon, Gyukatsu Motomura, Savoy, and Tsuta.
Tokyo Mentsudan
My first meal at a restaurant was at Tokyo Mentsudan on the first day I arrived in Tokyo. I had done some research ahead of time and found that this place served delicious udon for a great value.
The restaurant is relatively large for a space in Tokyo with a good amount of shared seating, bar seating and small separate tables. There are no host or waiter services at this restaurant so everything from ordering, picking up your food, and finding your own seat and table are done on your own. When you first enter the restaurant, you will see the beginning of the kitchen where they make and prepare your udon noodles. This is also where you order and wait on the side until the chef has finished preparing your dish. The menu offers several different options between udon with soup or dry udon without soup as well as either a small or large portion. After you have ordered and got your udon, you take your tray to the tempura area where you can grab a variety of different tempuras at an additional cost. Once you've selected your sides, you pay at the cashier, and this is also where you can get beer or other drinks.
I ordered the large portion of the beef udon with a poached egg and no soup with a side of tempura and a Sapporo beer, and the total amount was about ¥1,450-1,500. The large portion is definitely a lot of udon noodles and is very thick and filling, and I was unable to finish the entire bowl by myself. There was nothing special about the beef, however the udon noodles were silky and chewy, and the poached egg gave it good flavor and gave some texture to the dish. The shrimp tempura was really mediocre as I'm sure the other tempuras were as well since they were pre-fried and left out. This is the major reason why I gave this place a 3.9 rating because the tempura sides are not made to order and are not made fresh. As a result, the tempura is often cold and loses its crispiness by the time you eat it. However, for the price, I think the udon noodles are worth it and you get a really good value, especially if you are looking for something filling, casual and cheap.
Specialty: Udon Noodles
Price Range: ¥
Location: Japan, 〒160-0023 Tokyo, Shinjuku City, 新宿区Nishishinjuku, 7−9-15 ダイカンプラザ ビジネス清田ビル (Google Maps)
Yelp Rating: 4
Google Rating: 3.9
My Rating: 3.9
Mister Donut
Mister Donut is a popular chain in Tokyo serving donuts, coffees and teas, and are most notably popular for their mochi donuts. Unlike regular donuts, mochi donuts have a soft and chewy texture, they're gluten free, and shaped in a pon de ring form. They come in a variety of flavors and are only about $1 USD each, and the best part is that this popular chain closes at 2am so you can get your sugar fix in to satisfy your late night cravings!
I got the regular glazed donut as well as their fall seasonal sweet potato flavor that they had for a limited time. I'm a glazed kinda girl so of course, the original glazed mochi donut was my favorite, but the sweet potato one was really good as well.
Specialty: Mochi Donuts
Price Range: ¥
Location: Multiple locations - The one I visited is in Shinjuku - 1 Chome-2-1 Kabukicho, Shinjuku City, Tokyo 160-0021, Japan (Google Maps)
Yelp Rating: 4
Google Rating: 3.8
My Rating: 4.5
Zaku Zaku
Zaku Zaku is located on the popular Takeshita Street in Harajuku, selling crispy cream puffs filled with cream. But Zaku Zakus' cream puffs aren't like the cream puffs you first imagine; instead of being round, they're long like a churro with a crispy outer shell made by baking almonds coated with sugar and egg whites, and instead of a whipped cream filling, it's filled with a decadent cream filling made from fresh free range milk. The original flavor is milk, but they sometimes have seasonal or special flavors for a limited time, and when I went during the fall season, they had a purple sweet potato seasonal flavor. They also serve soft serve which they make themselves either served in a cone or cup.
The store in Harajuku was small, but had a great view of the kitchen and staff hard at work baking and filling the cream puffs. Since Takeshita Street is a very popular tourist location, there is almost always a line, but it moves very fast since their assembly line system ensures that there are always enough cream puffs to fulfill orders on the spot.
I paid ¥290 (a little less than $3 USD) for the sweet potato flavor, but the original milk flavor is only ¥250 (about $2.50 USD), which I think is a very reasonable price for such a great snack or dessert.
Specialty: Croquant Chou (Crispy Cream Puff)
Price Range: ¥
Location: 150-0001 CUTE CUBE HARAJUKU 1F, 1-7-1, Jingu-mae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0001 (Google Maps)
Yelp Rating: 4.5
Google Rating: 4.3
My Rating: 4.6
Uobei Conveyor Belt Sushi
I've always been fascinated with the concept of conveyor belt sushi, so I knew I had to try it when I was in Japan. Since conveyor belt sushi isn't the most fresh or of the highest quality and is more so for the dining experience, I thought it would mostly be filled with tourists, however to my surprise, the restaurant was mostly filled with locals, especially of the younger generations. I think the main reason why is because it's a casual atmosphere with good sushi at a very good price. For about $8 USD, I had 8 plates of sushi (with 1-2 pieces of sushi on each plate), which is really hard to come by in other parts of the world.
When you first walk in, you are greeted by a host who gives you a number, which is your seat number. All of the seating is bar seating situated around the conveyor belt, and each seat has a number. Once you find your seat, you can start ordering right away. There's an iPad where you can look through the menu and order what you'd like, green tea powder with a mini faucet for you to make your own green tea, plenty of ginger and other condiments like soy sauce, napkins and chopsticks. Since all of the ordering is done through the iPad and you have everything you need in front of you, there is no need for any waiters, which is why there aren't many workers.
The best thing about being able to order through an iPad is that you don't have to order everything at once; you can essentially order however much of something whenever you want. Additionally, the sushi gets prepared ridiculously fast, which particularly made my day since I was starving. Once the chefs place the plate onto the conveyor belt, the technology in place can identify which iPad the order came from and it'll stop right in front of you. There are two conveyor belts, one on the top and one on the bottom, and once your order has arrived in front of you, a button will pop up on your screen alerting you that to pick up your sushi. Once you've gotten your plates of sushi, all you have to do is hit the button saying you're done and the conveyor belt will start moving again. Pretty amazing right?
Overall, I think this was such a fun experience, and something I recommend especially if you're solo traveling around Japan. For those who are looking for high quality sushi, I don't think this place would meet your expectations, but it's definitely worth it if you've never had conveyor belt sushi before.
Specialty: Conveyor Belt Sushi
Price Range: ¥
Location: Japan, 〒150-0043 Tokyo, Shibuya City, Dogenzaka, 2 Chome−29−11 第六セントラルビル 1F (Google Maps)
Yelp Rating: 4
Google Rating: 4.4
My Rating: 4.3
Shin Udon
I was really excited to try this place because I heard such great reviews and many said this was one of the best udon places in all of Tokyo, so of course I had to try it! The restaurant is extremely small, only fitting 8-10 people at once with only two small tables and the rest is bar seating, where you can see the chefs hard at work making their delicious udon from scratch. So almost any time you decide to eat here, you will have to wait on a line. I waited for about an hour, but the food made it so worth it. As you get closer to the entrance, you will be given a menu and someone from the restaurant will come outside to take orders so that they can get orders done as fast as possible and minimize the wait time for food.
I've read that pretty much all of their udon dishes were amazing, and you can't really go wrong with whatever you order. They have cold and hot udon dishes, as well as different tempuras as a side. I got the soy sauce udon with butter and pepper and a poached egg with a shrimp tempura on the side. A lot of people call this the Japanese version of cacio e pepe, and after tasting it, I kind of agree as well. The udon is served hot and you're supposed to mix everything together so that the runny yolk from the egg and the butter will mix with the noodles and create a bit of a saucy consistency so the noodles don't taste dry. This was definitely one of my top 5 favorite things that I ate in Tokyo, and the hour wait was so worth it. Not only is the presentation of the dish so beautifully crafted and put together, but the food was so tasty and the silkiness of the udon noodles was unreal. If you only have time to try one udon place in Tokyo, I would no doubt recommend Shin Udon.
Specialty: Udon
Price Range: ¥¥
Location: Japan, 〒151-0053 Tokyo, Shibuya City, Yoyogi, 2 Chome−20−16 相馬ビル １F (Google Maps)
Yelp Rating: 4.5
Google Rating: 4.3
My Rating: 4.8
Uogashi Nihon-Ichi (Standing Sushi Bar)
Another interesting sushi spot I ate at was at the Standing Sushi Bar in Nishishinjuku. The place is literally a standing sushi bar, where there is a sushi bar with three sushi chefs, and you stand around the bar to order and eat your sushi. This place is more of a quick and casual stop for sushi, and not for young kids or large groups as the restaurant itself is extremely small.
Once you enter, you're given a spot at the bar area and a menu with all different kinds of nigiri and hand roll options. One of the chefs will prepare each roll for you, and each order comes with two rolls and are presented to you on banana leaves. The chef will ask if you would like to have wasabi in your sushi, as they usually put a pea size amount in between the rice and the raw fish. They also have chopsticks for you to use, but I decided to eat with my hands since it was easier to grip the sushi and make sure the rice didn't fall apart.
The sushi itself is not of the highest quality, however in my opinion, it was of higher quality than the conveyor belt sushi I had. Although the sushi here is pricier than conveyor belt sushi, the portions were generous and I think the price was worth the quality of the sushi. Although there was nothing extremely special about this place or the experience I had, it was my first time going to a restaurant where I stood to eat my meal, and the sushi was very delicious. There are multiple locations, and I did try one inside a train station as well, but the one in Nishishinjuku was my favorite; the place didn't feel cramped for how small it was, and the raw fish was much more fresh.
Specialty: Sushi
Price Range: ¥¥
Location: Japan, 〒160-0023 Tokyo, Shinjuku City, Nishishinjuku, 1 Chome−12, 河西ビル1F (Google Maps)
Yelp Rating: 4.5
Google Rating: 4.4
My Rating: 4.4
Ginza Steak
Ginza Steak is a popular restaurant among the all you can eat wagyu beef restaurants in Tokyo. There are two locations, the main Ginza Steak is in Ginza near the Shimbashi train station and the second Gina Steak is also in Ginza but near the Ginza train station. You have to make a reservation ahead of time, and since the main Ginza Steak location was fully booked, I ate at the second location instead.
Inside the restaurant there are two large grills with seating around the grill so you can see the chef cooking up your delicious steaks of Wagyu right in front of you. Lunch and dinner is a pre-fixe menu starting with an appetizer and soup, a beef bowl with onions and fried garlic, and then the all you can eat portion where the chef will keep asking you if you would like more wagyu, and then after, you will finish with some refreshing cold noodles with bits of braised beef and a lemon sorbet for dessert. I went for lunch and the cost was about $75 USD, and the dinner pre-fixe menu is more expensive, at around $100 USD or more.
In my opinion, I don't think there was anything special about this restaurant besides the all you can eat aspect. The pre-fixe dishes were good but it wasn't amazing and nothing really stood out to me, and the quality of the wagyu wasn't as good as I expected. The beef was chewier than I had liked, and it seemed that each piece of wagyu that was taken out were not of the same quality and they were definitely not all A5 wagyu quality as the restaurant advertises. Additionally, I felt a little awkward dining here by myself as other people were with groups and were conversing with each other, however, the chef makes very little effort to start conversation, so even though we were seated around the grill where the chef cooks the steak, the experience wasn't interactive at all.
The main reason why I didn't give this place below 4 stars is because it is a very good value for an all you can eat Wagyu restaurant. If you have a large appetite and can eat a lot, the experience is very worth it since you can eat as much wagyu as you can in the 1.5 hour time frame of your reservation.
Specialty: Wagyu Beef
Price Range: ¥¥¥¥
Location: 5 Chome-9-1 Ginza, Chuo City, Tokyo 104-0061, Japan (Google Maps)
Yelp Rating: 4
Google Rating: 4.2
My Rating: 4
Gyukatsu Motomura
Another one of my favorite dining experiences was at Gyukatsu Motomura, a small hidden restaurant in Shinjuku. Make sure you look at all of the small restaurant signs when looking for this restaurant, because we almost missed it even with using Google Maps!
Given its name, the restaurant is known for its gyukatsu, which is breaded deep fried beef cutlets, but still rare enough so that you can cook it to your preference with your own mini hot plate. The most popular dish are their beef cutlet sets which typically come with gyukatsu, rice, soup and some small side dishes. Each person also gets a mini square hot plate doused in oil so that you can cook your gyukatsu (this was my favorite part!). The beef was so tender and juicy, and the fried breading on the outside gave it a very crispy texture. There are two different condiments that you can eat it with - a horseradish sauce and a soy sauce that you can dip it into with some wasabi on the gyukatsu.
The prices are also very reasonable and affordable; the 130g beef cutlet sets range from ¥1,500-1,800 (approximately USD $15-18) and the 260g beef cutlet sets range from ¥2,300-2,600 (approximately USD $23-26).
Specialty: Gyukatsu
Price Range: ¥¥
Location: Japan, 〒160-0022 Tokyo, Shinjuku City, Shinjuku, 3 Chome−32−2 モトビル地下 1階 (Google Maps)
Yelp Rating: 4.5
Google Rating: 4.6
My Rating: 4.7
Savoy Azabujuban
When I went to Japan, I wanted to stuff my face with all the delicious Japanese food, and didn't even bother looking into non-Japanese cuisine. But little did I know that Tokyo has some of the best Neapolitan pizza in the world, and some even say it's comparable to pizza from Italy. Many famous pizza makers in Tokyo traveled to Naples and learned the craft of pizza making, and went back to Japan to create their own Japanese style Neapolitan pizza.
Savoy is one of those OG pizza spots in Tokyo since opening its first store in 1995, when pizza wasn't popular in Tokyo and there wasn't much of an Italian cuisine presence there yet. Today, there are over 6,000 Italian restaurants in Tokyo, and Savoy has several branches throughout the city.
We ate at the Savoy Azabujuban location in Roppongi, a small pizza shop with a big wood-fired oven. There's often a line to eat here since the restaurant can only seat 13 people at time, but it is definitely worth it. Inside, most of the seating is bar seating around the glass walls of where all the pizza making happens. There is only one chef who makes the pizza, and I loved watching him roll the dough and prepare our delicious pizzas while enjoying the jazzy background music.
There are only two different types of pizzas on the menu - margarita or marinara, and you can't go wrong with either. The margarita pizza is your classic margarita with sprinkled fresh basil leaves and drizzled olive oil on top, whereas the marinara pizza is made with fresh tomato sauce and lots of garlic, but with no cheese. There aren't a lot of ingredients in either of the two pizzas, but there is so much flavor in every bite.
Specialty: Neapolitan Pizza
Price Range: ¥¥
Location: 3 Chome-10-1 Motoazabu, Minato City, Tokyo 106-0046, Japan (Google Maps)
Yelp Rating: 4.5
Google Rating: 4.5
My Rating: 4.8
Bake Cheese Tart
I love cheesecake, and when I discovered these Japanese cheese tarts while we were in Tokyo Station, I had to get some. Just the buttery smell itself made me want to drool, and I could probably eat ten of them in one sitting if I could.
The cheese tarts are made with dairy from Hokkaido, a region known for its high quality dairy products in Japan. Their original cheese tart has a buttery and crispy crust with a light and fluffy creamy cheese filling with a melt-in-your-mouth sensation, and they sometimes have different seasonal or limited time flavors.
Specialty: Japanese Cheese Tarts
Price Range: ¥
Location: 地下一, 階 B1, 1 Chome-9-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda City, Tokyo 100-0005, Japan (Google Maps)
Yelp Rating: 5
Google Rating: 4.4
My Rating: 4.7
Tsuta
Tsuta is one of the first ramen restaurants to be awarded a Michelin star back in 2015. Since then, the restaurant has been very popular among locals and tourists, and because of this, they have a ticket system starting at 6-7am every morning to give people time slots of when they can come to the restaurant and eat. We got a time slot for 2:30pm but still had to wait about 40-45 minutes until we were seated.
As you get closer to the entrance while you are waiting, one of the employees will allow you to go inside to the vending machine where you make your order. There are many different kids of ramen, but the one that stuck out to me the most was the truffle salt ramen with pork and a soft boiled egg. I love ramen so I've definitely had my fair share of it at several different places back at home in New York City, but I've never seen a truffle ramen on any menu before.
The truffle ramen totally blew my mind and exceeded my expectations. The chef was super generous and covered my whole bowl with black truffle slices, which made me so excited because I've never had actual slices of truffle before, only truffle oil or grated truffle as garnish. The soup was so flavorful and the noodles eaten with the truffle had such an aromatic flavor to it.
Each of their different ramen is very affordably priced at about $15-18 USD per bowl, with the truffle ramens being a bit more expensive ranging from $26-28 USD. The restaurant also sells packaged ramen to go (sort of like instant ramen, but Michelin star version) with ramen noodles and a soy sauce base for the broth. I bought a few packs to bring back home to the States, and I can vouch that it was very tasty and the broth was packed with flavor.
Specialty: Ramen
Price Range: ¥¥
Location: Japan, 〒151-0066 Tokyo, Shibuya City, Nishihara, 3 Chome−2, 2-4 B1 (Google Maps)
Yelp Rating: 4.5
Google Rating: 4.2
My Rating: 4.8
Tokyo is one of many food capitals around the world, and I hope this helped give some insight on where or what to eat! If you'd like to read more about my travels through Tokyo and Japan, click here!
Comments