Isomaru Suisan Shinjuku 3choume — Restaurant in Tokyo

This restaurant was an absolute wild ride for a silly tourist like me. The line for a seat was a literal line out the door, along the side of the building. Pretty neat. There was an obvious preference for locals, as they were getting seated intermittently ahead of us liners, but that's ok.

The ambiance inside was real cool. Japanese walls and ceilings, lanterns hanging down, giant grills on every table. It was really really cool. Service was nice. There was a language barrier, of course, but Google Translate helped us get through this.

The menu was crazy. Even with the Translate app, it was tough to figure out what was going on. And the online ordering app wasn't much help either. We confusedly made our way to ordering a seafood platter.

What we didn't realize is that this seafood platter had live scallops and clams and a giant, rubbery squid. Never eaten anything like this before, ever. So not only did we have to fumble through that, but our grill ran out of gas twice as we were trying.

We ultimately didn't get to eat much food, but once we figured everything out, the shrimp were ok, I overcooked them, the scallops were good, after much butchering, and unfortunately, I cooked the squid beyond recognition and it would have been easier to eat a tire at that point.

I can't accurately use words to tell you how badly I dropped the ball coming here. But, the concept of the place was really cool, and now I know much better and am prepared for the next time I ever come into a...

A nice place to come if you want to have some grilled snacks and for the late night munchies. You will tell the host your party size and they will give you a number that they will refer you too, and your line on the waitlist. We were No. 3 and although the restaurant was packed, we didn’t have to wait too long outside; maybe 15 mins max.

We followed the directions to our seat, and the area we sat in required us to take off our shoes which I didn’t mind, and there was a cubby on the side where you can put your shoes. The grill was already placed on the table before we arrived and after sitting, they would give us some free starters to start grilling. Just note the restaurant (at least where we were sitting) is pretty small, so try not to bring too much with you.

We would get a menu and a tablet (had English option) to order our food. Service was prompt and I really Like how the servers were able to speak some English, and were able to help us out. Food came very promptly, so you don’t really have to worry about having an empty stomach for a long time. The dishes we ordered all tasted good, and flavorful, and were a good portion size for the cheap (cheaper than usual) price you pay!

The only flip side was the grill being overwhelmingly hot so the area got hot pretty fast, and the smoke flying directly into our faces when were grilling the food. We ended up smelling like smoke (including our clothes and...

Whenever we stay in Shinjuku area, we enjoy coming to this branch because it has more seats, food is good and the service is alright. However, we’ve had the WORST experience today. We were here late and the restaurant is not full at all. The staff at the door was so inhospitable. He made us wait for 5 minutes even though there were clearly many seats available. Once seated, my partner went to level 2 to use the toilet and noticed a lot of seats. Hence, I enquired if we could move upstairs. I understand if the staff does not speak English and needed a translation app—during this whole exchange, I spoke in English. YET, this “genius” of a staff asked if I’m okay with Chinese?!!!! That was disgusting, racist, xenophobic, and rude of him. It was an extremely unpleasant experience. The severe lack of service from this service staff is appalling. His disdain for customer service and tourist is clear. We sincerely hope that management takes this issue seriously and remove this person from customer-facing role when he is incapable of taking on this responsibility. For reference, he was the staff at the door on 6 April 2025 around 11.10PM.

Also, overall the service on this day was subpar. Not sure if it’s because this is...