Azabu Kadowaki — Restaurant in Tokyo

We came here to celebrate my birthday and ordered the Seasonal Omakase course with Mastuba crab.

The first dish was a nice moment noodles dish with dried bits of seafood. The balance of flavor was excellent, neither ingredient overpowering the other.

The second dish was a mix of squid, bonito flakes, damage, and a delightful tofu that was served on top of a seafood flavor paste. Again, the tastes complimented each other, and nothing stood out/ overpowered the other.

The next dish was a dish with a variety of tempura; lotus root, esei ebi (almost like a lobster), and small vegetable which name eludes. The tempura was very light and crispy, the flavors of the items were fresh, and the tempura coating cave them each a great texture.

The next dish was the crab head, which had its innards boiled in sake and served as a soup. The overall taste was ok, but the sake really overpowered the flavor of the crab. If I had to choose a dish that was the worst, this would be it.

The next dish(es) was a name pot, first served with bamboo and clam, then served with fresh tofu skin and vegetables. The garnish was a seven spice salt that you can add to either nabe dish to make it a little spicy. Both nabe dishes were delightful and full of flavor.

The last dish was a Japanese style takikomi gohan (fried rice), which uses sou sauce and mushrooms to make a flavorful rice dish. In this case, the mushrooms are replaced with black truffles, which gave the dish a nice, unique flavor to takikomi gohan.

Instead of the course desert, we had a lovely cake for desert, which was obtained from an amazing bakery nearby.

For drinks, we had sake as we felt the compliment Japanese dishes the best over wine.

If you want traditional Japanese ingredients used to prepare traditional style dishes, then this is a great restaurant to try. If you're looking for unique dishes, then this may not be the place for you.

For us, any Michilen restaurant needs to be spot on in all aspects of the meal to get five stars, and the shortfall here was the crab dish with sake, we felt 'meh' with this dish and had to force ourselves to finish it. That is the reason we rated this four stars. Other than that, all the other dishes were great and well in line of what...

Every time I travel to a Michelin city, I always go out of my way to go to a Three Star restaurant. I eat the street food, I eat the regular food, and I eat what's allegedly the best of the best. I like to get a wide variety of the cuisine of these places.

Well for Tokyo, I chose Azabu Kadowaki. I made my reservations, showed up, and then began the show. I reserved the six-person bar where the head chef himself was in front of us making all of the dishes himself, while his helpers made all the dishes for the dining room crowd that we couldn't see. Very cool.

Course after course came our way. Amazing fresh seafood, perfect tempura, a surprisingly delicious picked monkfish liver dip, a perfectly roasted snapper filet, a decadent somen noddle dish with uni and caviar, a nice clam and tofu skin soup cooked tableside, and his signature dish, the truffle rice.

He takes a pot of rice, and Makes It Rain with black truffle. More than I've ever seen anyone shave at one time ever, in real life or on TV. He mixes it all up, serves it all up with some fresh pickled veg. Very good.

Then he wraps it all up with a black truffle honey ice cream. It's perfect.

Overall, this was a definitely a Three Star restaurant on par with the others I've been to before. Anyone who doesn't say this was a five star experience, well, I wouldn't trust their judgment. Too many haters out there. Just enjoy...

This is extremely overrated and expensive restaurant for no reason. We went there for my mom’s birthday and it was a disaster.

We were taken to a private room near the entrance. It was very noisy with all the servers talking and even running. Also every time the door was open, the cold air came in. The heater was not effective.

First few courses are good but nothing spectacular and it was very slow. Again, because of the proximity to the entrance, it was loud all along from outside noise.

Finally, when we got to the signature truffle rice, there was a small insect!! We couldn’t believe it! We pointed out and they apologized, but seriously you should have changed it or offered something given we paid 50,000 yen per person!

Finally, when I made a reservation, they asked if I want them to prepare a cake for my mom and I said yes. What we got was an extremely lame strawberry cake from a nearby store and they charged 5,000 yen for this.

I will never go back. This makes me wonder how fair and objective the Michelin people are in Japan. There are so many places that are much better than here and charge...