Sushi Tora — Restaurant in Kanazawa

What started as an eccentric and charming experience ended 2 hrs later with a miscalculated overpriced bill which left a bad taste in my mouth. Mfo’s review is spot on, and while I’d love to support a local business with the oldest sushi chef in the prefecture, I cannot recommend it, at least to tourists.

Despite signage outside depicting it as tourist-friendly, the chef-owner and his wife speak very limited English, and there is no menu in either Japanese or English besides a placard for a 10-piece sushi set for 3800 yen. There is however a list of information in English and Japanese noting things like 10% tax and warning you that it will take time to receive your food.

Unlike multiple other restaurants in the area, we were able to walk in and were greeted warmly, For two people, we ordered two sodas, one tuna sashimi special, and one 10-piece sushi set (we meant to order two, but only one was prepared and we didn’t want to wait another 30 minutes for the second) that came out to 9400, then 10,400 yen. Why the change? The chef writes the order and calculates the bill on a piece of paper in Japanese, but shuffles the various customer bills as he moves behind the bar, so we either paid for a different order than what we were originally presented, or there were additional unexpected fees/miscalculations. Since we don’t speak or read Japanese, it hardly seemed worth it to argue so we paid and left.

The food itself was fine, not mind-blowing, and didn’t make up for the discomfort and confusion I felt at the various miscommunications. I imagine the experience to be much smoother for Japanese-speakers, and the local Japanese-speaking couple beside us seemed to be enjoying...

Please, you owe it to yourself to know what you're getting into before opening those sliding doors.

Do you long for the days when you would visit grandma and grandpa and listen to old stories about their glory days while they feed you? That's the experience you'll be getting here. The sushi chef is a humorous 81 year old gentleman who makes a valiant effort to guess your country of origin and converse with you throughout the meal.

Food: 3.5/5. The only option is omakase style, 4200yen (tax included) for 10 nigiri. The fish was large, fresh, and tasty. The rice was a bit soggy and had a bit too much vinegar for my taste.

Service: 2/5. hope you're not on a time crunch because this is two person operation. We spent nearly 2 hours for our meal.

Atmosphere: ??. If you want an intimate meal with a friendly sushi chef who asks you to sign his guest book and brings out the portable TV to show you the time he was on a game show, this might be right up your alley. But if you're looking for a more typical meal where the focus isn't on the personality of the chef, I'd suggest you...

I ended up here after a long day of traveling, landing in Tokyo and taking the Shinkansen to Kanazawa. I wandered in when nobody else was there, after all the reservations, and ate alone. Truly an odd dining experience. I was given a tall beer and sake and tamago to start, and mostly spent my time bantering with the Chef as it was just us. About halfway through, he started showing me his Elvis DVD collection and put on a WW2 documentary.

The sashimi and tamago was excellent. Service was slow, but he knows what he’s doing. It was an absolutely great late dinner — if you have the time to kill, it’s a great place to stumble into.

I probably wouldn’t set up a full seated bar dining experience — the service even for just 1 was a bit slow, which I appreciated, but might detract from a booked dinner. But if you can find time to stop by on a night where you’re doing nothing, it’s an...