I took a look - and you are apparently arriving late afternoon directly from JFK. Unless you are totally amazing when it comes to jet lag - you will be totally zonked your first night - and have a tough time making it up past 7 or 8 pm. So I wouldn't make a dinner reservation first night. Room service - local casual - assuming you don't simply crash and go to sleep upon arrival.

Next day you will wake up *very* early. Sushi breakfast at the Tsukiji fish market is a tradition among jet-lagged tourists (of which I was and will be one). Because they're awake and starving and there's not much else to do in Tokyo at 5 am. But there are other options as well. I googled "best breakfast Tokyo" and this was one of many hits:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/68007...#axzz2VZ3cPRTI

And here's a list of breakfast places I found on bento.com:

http://www.bento.com/r-breakfast.html

The Peninsula seems to serve breakfast in the hotel lobby. Perhaps I'm missing something - but it sounds like a yawn. Hit the streets for a good breakfast of your choice. I would go to Tsukiji (it's a tourist "rite of passage" IMO ).

Make lunch your big meal of the day (you are again unlikely to stay up late your first full day - or your second for that matter).

What kind of food would you like on your birthday (or the other day?). And where will you probably be? Tokyo is huge - and - although the subway is very efficient considering the size of the metro area - you should plan your dining and sightseeing so you don't have to spend half your day on the subway.

I'll be celebrating my birthday in Tokyo in September. And I want to dine at Joel Robuchon (French) on that date. Because I'm a bread and dessert person - and most Japanese fare isn't big in those categories. Tokyo has lots of great almost everything - and I think a person celebrating his/her birthday should eat whatever makes him/her the happiest. E.g., if you like steak - go to a steakhouse (not my cup of tea - but it might be yours).

Make a trip to a Japanese department store food basement to pick up a special treat if you like that kind of thing (I will be doing a chocolate excursion - Tokyo is superb for chocolates).

For (early light) dinner - there are apparently a lot of pretty good but far from luxury places at Tokyo Station (pretty close to the Peninsula IIRC). I've started to make a list of some. Especially ramen and noodle places. No reservations accepted. Which is ok in case you find your eyes closing at 7 pm.

On the other day - not the birthday - well my favorite kind of specialty Japanese food is tempura (I'm from the southeast United States - we love fried food ). What do you think you would like? And - again - what part of town do you think you'll be in?

Note that when I wrote my first message - I didn't realize your stay was only 2 days. Although Zezankyo is on my "short list" - it is considered kind of "out of the way". Not much to do/see in that part of town best I've figured out. So that might be a reason to dine elsewhere on a short trip (e.g., Kondo is in Ginza).

Please feel free to ask questions. I have only been to Tokyo once for a week (second visit will be this year). So I obviously can't say restaurant X is better than restaurant Y. But I think I have a decent handle on the practicalities of traveling from the east coast of the US to Tokyo (in terms of things like jet lag) - and travel within the city (in terms of time/distances). Robyn

P.S. I'm not kidding about the jet lag. On our first trip - we had plans to have dinner with a young couple from FT/east coast USA. Our 6th night there - their first. They called at about 6 pm and begged off because they were total zombies night of arrival.