Hello everyone!

I just discovered Flyertalk earlier this year and have been fascinated with the level of knowledge and advice offered by so many people. My wife and I are off on our first trip to Japan in mid-October. We are on our own for a few days in Tokyo before our tour starts, and I was particularly interested in this thread.

Robyng, your trip is just a month away and I was wondering if you and your husband have decided on your restaurant "itinerary"? Did you make reservations on your own or are you using your concierge's assistance?

You have a long list of possibilities and I wondered if you narrowed them down yet. MikefromTokyo has a number of interesting recommendations, in addition to your own research.

Can you share where you have decided to dine either lunch or dinner?

Many thanks!

So far - I've decided to make 4 lunch reservations. Sushi Mizutani - Kondo - Ginza Okuda - and Joel Robuchon. The hotel concierge has confirmed 2 - and - if all goes well - the other 2 should be confirmed tomorrow or Tuesday.

I am not making any dinner reservations before departure due to jet lag concerns. If/when we're awake at dinner time - we will either dine in casual places where far in advance reservations aren't required - or a bigger deal place where we can get reservations. Also - I haven't made a dinner reservation for night of arrival (Saturday). Or for Sunday (we plan to go sightseeing/people watching in Harajuku that day and will probably have a casual lunch there). Or for Wednesday (I'd like to go to Odaiba then to visit a museum - haven't yet explored the dining options in the area).

I might make another reservation before we leave. Maybe not. Note that we only made one reservation in Japan before we went on our first trip. And didn't have any problems getting terrific food - we stumbled into a lot of good restaurants :). And - in the end - the choices I did make were pretty much like throwing darts (the more I read - the more confused I got!).

Hope this helps, Robyn

Also ASA - we are having the concierge staff make all our reservations (apart from the time zone issues - I don't want to pick up the phone and call someone who only speaks Japanese). The concierge staff also been helpful in identifying some restaurants where "far in advance" reservations aren't necessary. They and some others (including a couple mentioned here) are on our list of "possibles" for dinner(s). I certainly plan to have at least one soba and one yakitori and one ramen meal.

If I had only a few days to dine - the first thing I'd do is pick the kinds of meals I wanted to have. Tokyo is very big on "specialty" restaurants - restaurants that only do one thing. I'm sure you can find restaurants that serve sushi and steak - but I'd find a restaurant that specializes in one or the other.

In terms of general categories - there's

Contemporary Japanese
Traditional Japanese/Kaiseki
Sushi
Steak
Soba
Udon
Tofu
Tonkatsu
Yakitori
Ramen
Unagi
Teppanyaki
Tempura
Sukiyaki
Fugu

And I'm sure there are some I've forgotten. Then you have all the "ethnic" restaurants. Of those - the only one on my radar screen was French.

Some of these cuisines lend themselves more to "high end restaurants" - others to "middle or lower end" - and some run the gamut.

Once you pick the kinds of food you're looking for (which will narrow things down) - I'd take into account any price constraints. And also where different restaurants are located with regard to your hotel and any sightseeing you'll be doing. After you do those things - it's a lot easier to start seeing individual trees in the forest and pick a couple of restaurants. Remember to leave some openings so you can wander around and explore and "discover".

If you have any more questions - feel free to ask. Robyn

Robyng, thank you very much for both of your replies. I appreciate your thoughts immensely.

I was surprised to read that you had chosen a restaurant which wasn’t on your original list, Sushi Mizutani. You must have been doing more research. Is there a blog or website that steered you in this direction? All of your choices seem well-reviewed.

I have read in a number of places that relying on “serendpity” can result in some wonderful dining experiences in Japan. But what criteria do you use when looking at a restaurant from the street to try it, since I suspect you don't read or speak much Japanese? Do you rely on the pictures in the window of the food? Does English have to be spoken? That’s the issue I am find so perplexing. And perhaps I won’t understand until I get to Tokyo and start walking around.

Having read some guidebooks and many of the posts in Japan Flyertalk about dining, I want to try more than sushi, as you suggest. (and what a surprise to learn from the latest Sukiyabashi Jiro postings that there are subgenres of sushi i.e. edomae!) Since you put it on your list would you go to a fugu restaurant? I don’t think I could ever convince my wife to try fugu or unagi.

Which “contemporary Japanese” restaurants did you consider? On your original list there was only Esaki. Do you count Narisawa, or is it "French"?

Which other French restaurants did you consider other than Joel Robuchon (La Table or L'Atelier)?

Your comments/suggestions are sincerely appreciated, Robyn.

I had kind of settled on Sushi Saito. And when the concierge at the hotel tried to make a reservation there - he got busy signals on the phone for 2 days! So I switched gears and went with Sushi Mizuntani. I already had decided to give my husband a sushi lunch at a 3* Michelin restaurant as an anniversary present. Had ruled out Jiro (for reasons discussed in this or another thread here) - and Sushi Yoshitake is only open for dinner. So Sushi Mizutani it is :). I'm sure these are all excellent restaurants - and that it's hard to go wrong with any of them.

With regard to "discovering" restaurants...

We'll just walk around wherever we happen to be when we get hungry for lunch (and sometimes dinner). Poke our heads in places if they look/smell interesting. FWIW - many middle of the road Japanese restaurants have plastic food in the windows.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7317/9...3999ac56_z.jpg

So - even if you don't read or speak Japanese - you're good to go (you just point out what you want in the window).

BTW - various buildings have tons of restaurants on multiple floors. For example - we found a good tempura restaurant just browsing around the "restaurant floors" at Barney's New York. The picture above is from one of many restaurants on a "restaurant floor" in a department store in Kyoto.

We got the "hang of things" pretty quickly. OTOH - if you only have a couple of days - you may not want to leave lots of things to chance. Guess it also depends whether you plan to do 2 big/big deal meals a day - or only 1. One big meal a day is our limit. And the other is smaller/lighter - or sometimes non-existent. That's why I'll only make 1 restaurant reservation a day - max.

Also - it is exceptionally prudent/necessary to make reservations at all "big deal"/very popular restaurants. Many are very small - and you'd be very lucky to get a seat/table at most of them at the last minute. More to follow, Robyn

As for things like "edomae sushi" - for an average person like me who knows next to nothing about Japanese food - it's "traditional" sushi - as opposed to "contemporary" sushi. See - for example:

http://www.sushiencyclopedia.com/sus...mae_sushi.html

If there are 10 types of traditional sushi - I sure couldn't tell the differences among them. FWIW - I personally like sashimi more than sushi. Especially if we're talking about a big meal. I happen to love fish and other things that live in water (and can appreciate many - both familiar and unfamiliar). But too much rice tends to fill me up too fast - leaving no room for the fish. I'll have to talk with the concierge when I get to Tokyo - and figure out how I can possibly get Chef Mizutani to accommodate this preference of mine. On our first trip - I had an omakase meal that was 1/2 sashimi - half sushi.

I only looked at a couple of "contemporary" Japanese restaurants. Esaki (which sounded more traditional than contemporary to me after reading some meal reviews). Narisawa (where the "food like moss and dirt in the forest" thing didn't appeal to me that much - I tried it in Stockholm last year - and it wasn't my favorite). And Ryugin and Den. Have read good things about the last 2 - but they are only open for dinner. So off my list for "in advance" reservations".

BTW - here's a "review of Den":

http://foodsaketokyo.wordpress.com/2...n-%E5%82%B3-2/

I set up RSS feeds of Food Sake Tokyo/Tokyo Food File/Bento.com on my home page about 4 months ago to get information/get me in the mood for our trip. If you have some time before you leave - you can do that too.

We are actually going to Joel Robuchon (not La Table or L'Atelier). It's the fancy one - where men are required to wear jackets ;). I considered Gagnaire for a few minutes - but I've always been more of a Robuchon kind of girl :). Might have tried the new L'Osier - but it won't be open until October. If your trip is October or later - take a look at L'Osier (old chef was great - am not familiar with the new chef).

I wouldn't try a fugu restaurant. Don't think it was in season our first trip - or will be in season our second. So you're talking "frozen" (which might work with fugu - but I wouldn't take a chance). Also - I've read reviews that basically say it's a bland uninteresting fish. Can't prove it one way or another by me - but it didn't interest me.

Unagi is a totally different thing IMO. Delicious. The picture above is from an "eel" restaurant. The thing that looks like grilled fish is grilled eel. If you don't tell your wife what it is - she'll love it. I hope to find some unagi on my menus at some restaurants during our trip (assuming it's in season - and a particular chef likes to prepare it). Also - if you go to an eel restaurant - like the one in the picture (where we had lunch one day) - well - like you can see in the picture - there's a ton of stuff to eat apart from the eel.

Note that grilled eel has great flavor and texture (better than acceptable to western tastes). When it comes to some Asian cuisines - I have some problems with texture. Especially slimy. And some with flavors. Sometimes too highly spiced - weird tasting spiced - or bland. With Japanese cuisine - haven't run across slimy. And my only observation with regard to flavor is that many traditional Japanese foods seem bland to western palates. Since I have never overused salt shakers - I'm not troubled by this.

FWIW - this is probably my favorite food blog about places to dine in Japan. Perhaps not the most experienced diner with the most informed palate - but she's young and fresh and interested in learning. And - because she's interested in learning - I think she's interesting:

http://www.tinyurbankitchen.com/2010...rything-i.html

It's not a sin not to know things IMO. But it is a sin not to be willing to learn. Robyn

Jinbocho Den is awesome. I have been there 3-4 times. It's been "discovered" now and was #2 on tabelog when I looked last. They also seem to have launched recently a fancy multi-lingual website.

It went from zero to 2 stars with Michelin from 2010-12. I didn't realize that it had a Michelin star when I went the first time in early 2011.

p.s. There was a long discussion about "edomae sushi" elsewhere in this forum. In an nutshell it is what you eat in the strip mall in Peoria (excepting the odd American maki stuff) as well as Jiro. Sushi before that innovation was cured or fermented fish with rice.

Japanese cuisine definitely does slimy. I'm surprised you've managed to avoid it: okra, yamaimo, moroheiya, natto...

mozuku...

Oh - that mozuku definitely does look slimy <yuck>. Don't even want to say what it looks like :eek:. But I guess I must have at least somewhat above-normal slimy tolerance because I live in the SE United States - eat okra - and don't think it's slimy. Especially when it's fried - or put in a gumbo or similar. Robyn

On the "contemporary japanese" front, I can recommend Mutsukari. Had a fabulous contemporary kaiseki-style dinner there in July while on my birthday RTW. Great counter views of the chef and his team working in the kitchen, interesting presentations and combinations, to include what I called a 'make your own sno-cone' dessert. Shaved ice with several syrups you could spoon over.

Our Dining Experiences In Tokyo
 

Guess I should update this thread with some notes about our dining experiences.

First off - I was 100% right about our jet lag (we're pretty bad when it comes to jet lag - and this trip was no exception). I'm not a breakfast eater - but was hungry for breakfast when the hotel restaurant opened (at 6:30 am the first few days!). We had breakfast in our hotel every day of our stay. It was included in our room rate at the Four Seasons as a FSPP amenity. A credit of 4100 yen per person per day for either restaurant or in-room dining (this was enough to cover just about all menu items - except the Japanese breakfast was a few hundred yen more). I think this is an excellent deal for people who want to have breakfast in their hotel. And the different choices - we tried many - including the Japanese breakfast - were all tasty.

Lunch was our "dinner". We were only able to muster up tiny appetites for dinner on 2 nights before we fell asleep (early) - and otherwise skipped it. One night we split a room service burger (covered by a 9000 yen FSPP food and beverage credit) - which was fine. The other night I took out curry from Tokyo station next door. The shrimp and pork were excellent. The rice was fine. I wasn't as fond of the curry sauce (I think the meals came with about a quart of it!) - but quite enjoyed the meal without the sauce.

We had 2 lesser deal lunches. One at Maisen (tonkatsu) in Omotesando (surprisingly easy to find in the back streets because it has signs all over). I'm not much of a pork eater - but my husband pronounced his excellent. I had cold noodles with a dipping sauce (described as soba on the English menu - but I think they were a different kind of noodle based on my food book with pictures - which someone was kind enough to give me as a gift). Very refreshing on a hot day.

FWIW - the main lesson from this lunch - for me - was never be afraid to ask if you don't know what you're doing. I'd never had cold noodles in Japan before - and thought I should pour X (a soy sauce based sauce) and Y (hot water) over the noodles. We asked our server (using some of my husband's Japanese and some hand language) - and she indicated that I was to mix X and Y in a cup - along with some condiments - and then dip the noodles into the resulting sauce. A food faux pas averted.

Our other non-high end lunch - in a restaurant in a department store - was a nothing. We wound up there on a rainy day when our original destination - the restaurants at the Asahi building near Asakusa - didn't appeal to us when we arrived (perhaps the beer was good but the food seemed totally unappealing). Oh well - even Babe Ruth struck out once in a while :(.

On to our other lunches. My absolute favorite - hands down - was at Joel Robuchon. I think one thing we discovered (or rediscovered) on this trip is we like French food more than Japanese food. Robuchon has some interesting fusion twists - but it is basically French. Moreover - it's a pretty good bargain at lunch. We had the 8000 yen menu. Which includes the amuse courses - a starter - a fish course - a meat course (I could eat its Bresse pigeon every day!) - pre-desserts - a dessert course - and some dessert throwaways. Oh - and I forgot the bread service - yummy. Even with champagne - some wine - and a dish with a supplement - this meal for 2 cost less than lunch for one at a high end sushi restaurant. Definitely recommended.

My second favorite restaurant was Ginza Okuda. We had the "middle" lunch menu - at 12600 yen (which is the same as the least expensive dinner menu). I very much admired the chef's techniques - use of seasonal ingredients - and flavors. Consider his technique in preparing squid. Taking thin cut squid and cross-hatching it very finely on both sides with a huge very very sharp knife until it had the texture of butter. The chef also explained that preparing the squid this way exposed the best-tasting inside parts to one's taste buds. I also very much enjoyed the 2 kinds of eel we had. Eggplant - being in season - was of course prominent and done perfectly (one delicious dish - IIRC - was eggplant topped with uni topped with something else I can't remember). And we had the first of the season matsutake mushrooms. Plus a lovely jellied dessert with those huge grapes (deseeded and peeled).

Doesn't make much sense to go into every course at length - because I suspect this menu changes very often - in accordance with the seasonal availability of various ingredients. This will give you the general idea:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/201.../#.UjoUCn_px48

I think Ginza Okuda is a perfect place for someone who enjoys a chef with excellent technique who uses seasonal/local foods at their best. It is the 2 star "little sister" of 3 star Kojyu (which isn't open for lunch). I can only imagine what Kojyu is like! Definitely recommend (although 100% not handicap friendly - restaurant is in a basement with no elevator access). Note that the chef doesn't speak English - and the person who helped us in terms of ordering drinks/explanations/etc. (I honestly don't know what his title would be in Japan - but maitre 'd would be the closest I'd come up with were I dealing with a western restaurant) only spoke a few words of English. We dined here with a guest who spoke fluent Japanese - and I'm glad we did. Biggest surprise here was the sake the maitre 'd recommended to go with the meal only cost 1000 yen (for a pretty fair amount of it).

Third favorite - Sushi Mizutani. OK - here's where my problem with fast service really started to kick in. Rochuchon served a large lunch at a proper pace IMO - about 2 1/2 - 3 hours. Okuda was about 2 hours (which was a little too fast for me). Mizutani was less than 1 1/2 hours. And - for me - for this much food - it's just too fast. As soon as you finish one course - the next one arrives. Mind you - I'm not a fan of 4-5 hour meals with 30 courses - but 15 (or however many) courses in 90 minutes or less is too fast IMO - at least for my digestion. YMMV. The fish was exquisite. The sushi assembly - including rice and seasonings - too. My favorite - even taking into account the high end tuna - was the horse mackeral. Like I've mentioned in another thread - we were lucky enough to be seated next to a chef from New York who worked at Masa for 4 years - and his Japanese/Japanese fluent wife. We would have missed a lot without their input. If I had any idea who they were (they didn't have business cards) - I'd send them a big thank you.

And Chef Mizutani - although he doesn't speak a word of English - was pleasant/jovial (as I understood him through our Japanese/American interpreter sitting next to us). Even though he made fun of me for "running out of steam" about 3/4 of the way through our meal. And just to show how far east is from west - when he learned we were from the United States - he showed me a card of a previous guest and asked who he was. David Kinch - from Manresa in Los Gatos. Pretty famous here in the US - but totally unknown in Japan. I explained to Chef Mizutani who Chef Kinch was. I guess Chef Mizutani liked us. Because he chatted with us - through our "interpreter" - while serving us some hugely expensive grapes a client had given him as a gift - as well as some excellent fruit soaked in what I can only call "fire water" (apparently a great delicacy but not to my taste).

As you can tell - I liked the "after-meal" with Chef Mizutani more than the meal itself. The sushi was perhaps over my head - and definitely served too quickly for my taste - but the "chat" with Chef Mizutani was great. As an aside here - I am familiar with the custom of exchanging business cards in Japan. In every high end restaurant we dined at - the chef presented us with a business card. And I had mine ready to present back (if you don't have business cards - get some printed for a trip to Japan). I did it the "right way" (I think). Held in both hands - facing the person I was giving the card to. Chef Mizutani - when presented with my card - was surprised I was a lawyer. Guess there aren't too many women lawyers in Japan.

Last restaurant - Kondo. This just fell flat for me. It had by far the fastest service (had 2 lunch sittings). And I didn't love the tempura (thought that Ippoh - on the top floor of Barneys Ginza - on our last trip was better). It wasn't bad - but nothing in the restaurant sang to me/clicked for me in any way shape or form. Wouldn't try it again - although YMMV.

Finally - what would a birthday/anniversary trip for a woman be without sweets? I got macaroons at Laduree at Mitsukoshi - and chocolates at Maison du Chocolat at Matsuya - both in Ginza - to celebrate my special events. You'll never hear a complaint about these sweets from me :). Robyn

Possibly ramen (often called "soba" or "chuka soba" by old-school restaurants).
http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-dif...and-chuka-soba

A Recommendation - Take A Friend Who Speaks Japanese To Lunch
 

Since I live in Florida - this is obviously not a self-serving recommendation on my part :).

Some people in the United States always like to say that people in this country or that country really speak English - but don't care to (and they hide their ability to speak English). Whether or not that is true in other countries - in Japan - the truth is that English is hard to come by at many restaurants. And having someone with you who speaks fluent Japanese can turn a questionable or confounding experience into a fun one. We've invited people on this and our last trip to dine with us - as our guests. And haven't been disappointed. My only regret on this trip was that we were weren't able to get together with people at dinner due to our jet lag.

I've always thought it's a better than fair deal. We will treat you to a meal - and you can translate for us. Win - win :). Plus you get to meet some really interesting people too. And talk with them about lots of things. I've learned a great deal about Japan (and other countries) getting together with people on this basis (and I thank them very much for helping me to learn about their countries). Robyn

Judging from the book I have - the pictures of the noodles - and what they were served with (including the "dipping bowl" and what you put in the "dipping bowl") - it's hiya-mugi. Whatever that is :). Could be the same thing you're talking about for all I know. Very nice taste - and - like I said - very refreshing on a hot day.

FWIW - I think this is a really nice book. It was a great help in our dining. ISBN 978-4-7958-3873-4. It's called Japanese Food (the original Point and Speak Phrasebook - written by Toshiya Enomoto). Also of great help was the other food guide our friend gave us - Sushi - a laminated guide to sushi in Japan. ISBN 978-4-9904396-0-6. Don't know if either of these is available outside Japan. I hadn't run across either of them before - and they were given to us as a gift in Japan. Robyn