Iro Izakaya — Restaurant in Berlin

Review of the vegetarian menu:

This is one of the best Japanese restaurant experiences that I have ever had!

First of all, there were so many vegetarian and vegan options on the menu that I couldn’t believe it! Me and my company decided to share 4 small dishes and 2 medium dishes: edamame beans, agadeshi tofu, okonomiyaki, vegetable tempura, dumplings and teriyaki tofu. Even though we are two hungry people we practically rolled out of there. The whole bill for the food + 4 beers + 1 small bottle of sake only came to about 50 euros.

The edamame beans were prime quality: springy, fresh and salty.

The agadeshi tofu was a piece of incredibly soft silk tofu that was deep fried in a thin batter and served with a light savoury soy dipping sauce. Completely addictive!

The okonomoyaki was fried cabbage pancakes that came with a slightly thicker Japanese style bbq sauce (not too different from English HP-sauce), spring onions and pickled ginger on top. Packed with umami and savouriness! The oko that I’m used to is usually more compact and served with Japanese mayo, but this was fresher, although I missed the mayo a little bit.

The vegetable tempura was a big hit! I just don’t understand how it’s possible to reach that level of crispiness? Pieces of sweet potato (personal favourite), baby corn, zucchini, carrots etc that were deep fried in tempura batter and served with a light soy-ginger dipping sauce. I couldn’t stop eating!

The dumplings with shiitake filling were packed with umami and flavour even though they were quite thin. I think I might have preferred them a tiny bit more crispy but they were still great.

The teriyaki tofu used that same kind of beautiful tofu as in the agadeshi tofu. It was perfect to pair with the less runny teriyaki dressing too. Just straight out delicious.

It should also be mentioned that the service was over the top. Quick, attentive and incredibly polite!

There were both indoor and outdoor seating overlooking the nice park. I’m already looking forward to...

Unfortunately very disappointing. Service was OK, but the staff didn't know what they were serving most of the time - we were a big party and it was very confusing. Even for Sake tasting, they were not really able to tell the bottles apart. I ordered a Gyudon with an Onsen Tamago (soft egg with a very runny yolk) on top. The onsen tamago wasn't one - just a slightly medium boiled egg, and instead of the classic red pickled ginger on top, they added red picked radish (which tasted sweet and completely different, not fitting the dish). All of my friends' dishes also looked nice but were somehow....nah. My friend's Yakis9ba were all mushy and the noodles glued together, with a large amount of sauce and didn't feel like properly panfried at all. My Gyudon tasted OK at best for 14,50€... I had the feeling, someone googled different Japanese dishes, tried to recreate them, but without much actual knowledge of Japanese food. (Much of the food also felt like someone got "help" from various sauce mixes/instant stuff from the Asian supermarket) If it was called an "asian fusion" restaurant instead of a Japanese izakaya, I might not have had such high...

I'm Japanese Canadian. We went here for the second time for my fiancee's birthday. The first time we went the food was quite good, especially for Berlin. I recognised the server (or owner?) from Makoto in Mitte, a place I have frequented for years. Today, the same fellow was there. While I was ordering, he rolled his eyes in apparent boredom, and my fiancee gave him a mildly disapproving look. He then demanded, "was gucken Sie?". We were both surprised and so he said "What are you looking at? What are you looking at?" He wouldn't stop saying it. At first we thought he was joking but he was apparently serious. We were so stunned that we finished ordering, and then decided to leave. We're both still perplexed at his behaviour, and don't plan on returning. I know this is Berlin, but by Japanese standards this is an extremely rude way to treat your customers, and not very wise if you want to be successful as a business. It's a shame since the food is actually...