Dairen — Restaurant in Tokyo

Some of the best down-to-earth Chinese food I've had outside China after living there for 5 years. Dairen is known for its dumplings (gyoza): shrimp, fish, pork, or beef panfried, steamed, or boiled. Personally, I love their mapo eggplant. Dairen is super affordable for dinner,but even more so for lunch. For less than 1000 yen you can get full-sized (i.e. large) portions of noodles and a rice dish, such as mapo tofu. This comes with 3 dumplings and pickled vegetables. It's more than enough food for two people, so just get one order of dumplings and share the lunch set.

Be aware that this is heavy, oily, flavorful Chinese food. Also, Dairen's atmosphere is very much like small restaurants in Beijing: simple decor, cheap tables and chairs, and minimal service (reason for 4 and not 5 stars). Don't expect Japanese quality of service here; regardless, expect to go...

Let me start with the very basics.

The restaurant lady came to collect the bill by cash at the table while we were eating at 11:15pm, when the restaurant would actually close at 12am as per google.

We were given regular water glasses for beer while the locals were given mugs.

They kept on staring at us while we were eating since 11:20pm, as they wanted us to be out and didn't even let us finish the food by 11:30 pm.

The food overall is okay. Please avoid this restaurant...

The server rolled his eyes at us every time we tried to place an order. He would slam the plates down on the table and even turned the AC off towards the end of the night (keep in mind this was in mid-August when temperatures were 35 degrees Celsius or higher), as he wanted us to leave. When we tried to pay the bill, he yelled at us to go downstairs and pay. Worst service I have experienced in my entire life, and the food was nothing special. Avoid this place...