Hello, this is Alfred. In this video, I’ll introduce to you 10 popular restaurants in Tokyo: ramen with Michelin one star, 2nd generation of God of Tempura, Bib Gourmand-selected fried pork chop and yakiniku omakase, etc., it has everything. Doing research for your trip to Tokyo? This video is perfect for you, then. The following will be in a random order. First, let’s talk about fried pork chop. Located in the basement of a commercial building in Shinbashi, the resto has 12 seats in total. It first opened in 2021 and was soon selected by Bib Gourmand in 2023. The owner's parents both run restaurants, so some of the food here, such as sauces and miso soup, are tastes inherited from the previous generation. It specializes in Kurobuta pork from Kagoshima, offering loin and fillet, and you can choose both of them. Besides the standard Kurobuta pork, they also offer a seasonal item, which is a more premium and pricier Kurobuta pork. A set for one is priced at JPY1,600-3,600. The fried pork chop here comes with a few sauces, namely a sweet pork chop sauce, a not-so-sweet pork chop sauce, a miso sauce, and yellow mustard. Special thanks to Surfshark VPN for sponsoring this video. There are potential threats on the Internet; people with malicious intent might track down our browsing history or locations. We may encounter computer virus too. VPN can reduce the risk of these threats, making it safer to go online. We can also connect to VPN servers in different countries. When we watch Netflix or Disney+, we can join plans outside of Hong Kong. We can check the prices and shows available in different regions. Also, if we are overseas, we can connect to Hong Kong's server and keep using our old accounts and services. For Surfshark VPN, you only need one account to install and use it on unlimited devices. If you are interested, you may use the link here. They’ll soon offer a Black Friday deal. With the promotion code, it will be much cheaper than the regular price. Check the description box for more details. The next resto has been mentioned by Hong Kong news outlets, and it’s Hikiniku to Come. They’ll be opening a branch in Hong Kong, and it’s the second overseas branch after Taiwan. This resto has four branches in Japan and is crowned the most popular Japanese hamburger restaurant in Japan. If you want to understand its glamor, you need to be dedicated; first, there wouldn’t be a chance for walk-in. You will have to line up for a ticket right at dawn time. Once you get the ticket, you can go back for lunch or dinner after a few hours. The other way is to reserve a table online. They regularly release reservations for a few days ahead, so you’ll have to race with others around the world. Usually, they’ll be fully booked right away. It’s said that the branches are now available only by reservations. Do search for the latest booking methods if you’d like to try it. There are a lot of tutorials online. This restaurant only offers hamburger mains. All the seats are at bar tables, and the chef will prepare the patty and grill it in front of you. The set includes rice, miso soup and raw egg. We came to line up at around 11:15AM. It is now almost 2PM. There is no one before me, which means we are next to enter the resto. We have queued for just less than 3 hours, not yet breaking our queuing record for ramen in Japan. Chūka Soba Ginza Hachigo is one of the only three ramen restos in Tokyo that received one Michelin star in 2023. The other two are Ramen House Konjiki Hototogisu and Nakiryu. We have filmed both, and you may have a look if interested. The owner used to be a chef of French cuisine at a hotel, but he made a change in career in 2018 and opened this ramen resto, getting a Bib Gourmand selection right after and receiving high ratings in Tabelog. It went off with a bang. Chuka Soba is their specialty in this resto; with consommé as the basis, they created a light-bodied broth without soy sauce. The broth is mainly made with chicken, duck, kombu, shiitake mushroom, and ham. The flavors of the ingredients perfectly blend together, making a very harmonious taste. The noodle, chashu, bamboo shoot and egg are on a par with the brilliant broth. It is rare for a famous ramen resto to not have an apparent shortcoming. I ordered the most expensive noodle, Special Chuka Soba, with an extra egg and chashu. We must eat more to make our time spent on lining up worthwhile. Since someone licked Sushiro’s soy sauce bottle as a prank, many restos offered conveyor-belt sushi in Japan are now make-to-order, including this one. Every diner places their order using a tablet, and the waiter would serve the dish when it’s done. which is like ordering a la carte. The food quality is actually better, but I’m not sure if this is better or worse for diners. This conveyor-belt sushi restaurant is actually a sub-brand of the Michelin-starred GINZA ONODERA, so some of the media would call it Michelin-level cuisine with a low-end price. This statement is a bit deceitful and exaggerated. Its actual quality cannot be compared to restos that cost tens of thousands of yen per person; but as a conveyor-belt sushi resto, this one is way above average. Since the ingredients are quality and are processed with good skills, this resto is not within the lowest price range. To fully enjoy the meal, you may have to spend HKD200-300 for each person. By the way, I visited its main branch GINZA ONODERA a few months ago for an omakase that costed over JPY30,000 per person. It was a terrible experience, and you must not try it. In 2019, we filmed our visit to the most popular tempura resto in Japan, Mikawa Zezankyo, opened by Chef Saotome, who has been hailed as the “God of Tempura”. Today, we are visiting the resto opened by Chef Saotome’s eldest son. The resto is located in the residential area in Roppongi, and its decor is more modernized than Mikawa Zezankyo. It is not as antique. Same as the serving order in Mikawa Zezankyo, Kuruma prawn is first served. The texture and taste were actually the same as the one served in Mikawa Zezankyo, just that it’s slightly overdone. The head of shrimp, however, was the opposite - the oil wasn’t hot enough, and it’s undercooked, so its flavors were not fully released. Kisu, the testimony of a chef’s skills, was apparently over-fried. The essence of tempura was lost as it’s not as tender as a steamed/baked fish. Since we’re seated by the bar table, we watched the chef cooking the whole time. I noticed that the time they took to rest the fried food was short, and they even served some of the dishes right out of the frying pan. It slightly contradicts the God of Tempura’s theory and the methods adopted by other popular restos. The actual effect was that some of the dishes were greasy. The blotting paper was always soaked in oil, and they knew it, so they kept changing it for us. The heat for about half of the dishes wasn’t accurately controlled, and they often overdid it. We ordered an uni tempura at the end, and the uni had become clay-like. It’s apparently overdone. And by carefully tasting it, we found a slight chemical odor similar to alum. The uni had a poor quality. Overall, I would call it a second-tier tempura resto. It’s not at the same level as some Michelin-starred restos and his father’s Mikawa Zezankyo, but it’s better than the unknown tempura restos and way better than the ordinary tempura rice bowls and izakayas. I ordered a set meal with add-ons, and it costed around JPY12,000 per person. Bird Land is a yakitori resto with one Michelin star. I reserved a table before the trip, but walk-in is accepted. It’s priced at around JPY10,000 per person. The resto has a lively ambience, which is similar to izakayas’. The resto has an open kitchen, so we can watch them cooking as well. Several chefs were grilling at the same time, and they had a few helpers next to them to follow up the orders, plate the food and serve the dish. Both awarded one Micheline star, Toriki seemed to take their time to make fine goods, but Bird Land felt like a mass production factory that rushed to complete more orders. The ingredients were good, though; they used Okukuji chicken, which was flavorful. Overall, the food’s quite heavily seasoned, different from yakitori restos that emphasize the flavors of ingredients. They tend to cook the meat more thoroughly. Many restos offer medium or even medium-rare chicken breast, but they made it almost well-done. For those who have hygienic concerns about undercooked yakitori, you may feel at ease here. Besides, I saw that for some of the cuts, they didn’t serve them right after grilling. Instead, they put them aside to rest, then covered them with a metal bowl, so the residual heat would cook the center. It’s similar to the way of making tempura, and not every yakitori resto does it. The resto is nice overall, but it feels like they’re rushing the orders. The heat control for some of the skewers wasn’t accurate. Before we proceed to the next resto, let me explain why we were in thick jackets as well as T-shirts in this video, and sometimes the passersby wore masks. It’s because this video includes clips of not only one trip, but those that spanned almost a year. We still have many restos up for discussion. Again, subscribe to our Youtube channel and follow our Facebook and Instagram pages. Godaime Hanayama Udon is popular among frequent travelers to Japan. They’re famous for their udon and have a few branches. It’ll take forever to line up for the Ginza branch, and I prefer going to the Nihonbashi branch. At noon, it’d be the white-collar workers lining up for it, and it usually only takes a while. There was once I could enter without lining up. With its convenient location, I’ll repeatedly visit this branch. Their signature is the 5cm-wide Oni-Himokawa noodles, served chill, with sesame dressing. With pictures on the menu, you will know what you’re ordering. They offer meal sets at lunch time; they come with kamameshi for about JPY1,500, which is good value for money. Many famous udon stores in Japan are only good with noodles, but have rather nondescript sauces, broths and toppings. Godaime Hanayama Udon, which we just mentioned, does well apart from noodles. And this resto called Udon Yamacho actually does excellently in all aspects, providing an enjoyable dining experience. Before I made this video, I’ve visited it once, but I didn’t record it. I found the food here really delicious and wanted to introduce this resto to you, so I came here again and filmed it after a few months. As you see here, the meal set includes many items. The starter is exquisite, including salty and sweet flavors, light and rich tastes, as well as cold and hot items. The main course includes tempura, which is good for a non-specialty here. You can choose the thickness and temperature of the udon noodles to your taste. I recommend ordering a pricier meal set here, which is about JPY2,000 during lunch time. It’ll include more snacks. Next up is your favorite all-you-can-eat yakiniku. Oreno Yakiniku is under a huge enterprise with various types of restaurants, and it has many branches. We visited and filmed the one in Shinbashi. This resto also has an a-la-carte menu. They have a set for 2-3 people, which claims to include different cuts of the beef. Many people order this set. They have 3 all-you-can-eat sets with different prices and we ordered the one in the middle, which was JPY6,980 per person. Adding the fees for reservation, tax and drinks, the price was around JPY9,000 per person. They first served this platter after we placed the order, and the portion was astonishing. It made us quite full already, so we only had a few add-ons. The quality of meat varied among the different cuts, but they’re pretty satisfactory, overall. The set included A5 Kuroge Wagyu, even with cuts of sirloin. The complete menu included 76 items; the more expensive the set, the more rare cuts it’d include. The table setting is quite Hong Kong-style, but it’s not too packed. If you don’t require a super comfy experience, this resto is worth visiting. But if you want a cozier seat, you can come to Niku Yokocho in Akihabara. The tables here are bigger and farther apart, and the lighting is brighter here. This resto only offers all-you-can-eat menu, priced at around JPY7,000 per person, bottomless soft drinks included; pay an extra JPY1,000 for bottomless beer and sake. It’s stated that this set includes wagyu. Be aware that their Shibuya branch provides meat from domestic cattle; the price is lower, but the quality won’t be the same. In terms of the quality of beef, Oreno Yakiniku is better, but not by a mile. The most interesting thing here is the way you place an order: some of the dishes, like veggies and seafood, can be ordered via a tablet, but for the beef, you’ll pick them from the display cabinet outside. They put all the meat on display, which consists of over 20 types; you can see the quality of the meat and pick whatever you like. Just tell the staff the number, and they’ll get it for you. You can also choose the portion of the meat. I only took a small portion each time, and the staff seemed concern about it and kept asking me if I wanted more. The dining experience was delightful. This is the end of this video, and I would like to ask if you prefer succinct travel vlogs like this one or videos with more details, like my usual food reviews. Comment below and let me know. See you.
