Lawry's The Prime Rib — Restaurant in Tokyo

Went to this restaurant after reading rave reviews on here however I have to say the restaurant was a real disappointment...

Good points:

A) The meal comes with complimentary warm and tasty bread and a large (in Japanese terms) salad.

B) service is good in a Disney sort of way.

Bad points:

A) the claims that this restaurant has a great ambience are really, truly inaccurate. The place has the same feel to it as Disney Land - waitresses in over-the-top costumes, meat wagons on wheels, no windows (it is in a basement) with haunted house lighting. There really is no ambience at all in any real sense - just an artificial feel to the whole place.

B) tying in with point A, the mood is worsened further by the fact waitresses sing happy birthday in a high pitched eerie way to tables (this happened 6 times in my two hours at the restaurant) and include "happy birthday from Lawwwwwrie" in their song to add to the creepie/Haunted Mansion Disney feel of the place.

C) the other claim was of the food quality! Well for 7000 yen (including tax and service charge) you get a slab of meat and a dollop of mashed potato and a few slices of cheap-tasting Yorkshire pudding. The cost wouldnt be an issue if you were getting high quality, freshly made food. However, it is all already prepared in food carts which are wheeled over to your table, plopped onto a plate and covered in a gravy which smothers the steak and overpowers any flavour - 3000 yen felt the absolute maximum this school-dinner style meal was worth.

E) the cost - for two meals (one Tokyo steak and one California- there is only one type of meat on offer and the names merely refer to the portion), a bottle of house red and an espresso came to a grand total of ¥20,000. This felt about ¥10,000 too much. Again, if the meal was expertly prepared and freshly made rather than rationed out in a school-dinner way I wouldnt mind paying this price but the quality/atmosphere really did not match the cost at all.

My advice - if you want to splash out the amount this place charges for a meal, find a different restaurant with genuine ambience and better quality food which is actually made for you rather than that which has been sitting in odd food carts in the...

Living in Japan, it'll always be a clash of cultures, or philosophies, fine dining on steak - Wagyu vs USDA Prime. Exquisite marbling &melt in you mouth delicacy or filling juicy meat with full singed smoked mouth watering flavor & stomach filling satisfaction.

That said, to each it's own.

After some "lost in translation" getting my name right in the reservation on arrival at Lawry's Ebisu (Katakana does not like being Anglicized!) we were quickly seated to decide the nights course.

Having decided on Lawry's Cut prime rib (a house specialty) and whole steamed Canadian Lobster, we tucked into the tasty bread and got "heady" on the spinning bowl salad. The staff cheerfully explained our orders, what currently was being served - a nice touch, if only in Japanese.

The whole lobster was a fair size, done just right and tasty. No the greatest I've had, but we wanted some balance to what was coming up so it did its part - hey, that's just me!

The pièce de résistance was undoubtedly the Lawry's Cut prime rib and when it arrived, I quickly looked for a trusty steed as my cowboy instinct, not to mention appetite, was quickly stirred.

I got the boned portion, and although a steak knife was offered, really only used it to pick said bone clean! The meat was soft enough to cut with a fork, but really meaty and juicy. This is belly-filling mouth watering (dribbling?) consumption - all missing was yodeling and a campfire! The soft lighting and seating provided more than enough comfortable ambience.

Luckily there was just enough for coffee and afters - tiramisu & the New York Cheesecake. We made like the scarecrow and rightfully stuffed!

Servings are full-sized, still a bit of a rarity in Japan, and pricing reflects that - though not out of place with say other fine teppan restaurants. Dinner in my opinion is really more for that special occasion but you do get what you pay for, and I'm really happy with that.

Really...

Lawry's is amazingly famous among foreigners (particularly Americans) living in Tokyo for its roast beef dishes. It's very American in every sense and they just love the beef, sides, serving style and everything. If you go for lunch, you get a good chunk of beef at a reasonable price. And the interior decorations are gorgeous and comfortable. Personally, I like the atmosphere much better than their roast beef, to be honest.

It can be used for a friend gathering, business lunch, date and so forth. Their salad bar has a decent variety of dishes as well and it comes with the lunch dishes. It's pretty nice.

The reason why I don't give a higher rating for Lawry's is because their specialty, roast beef, just doesn't meet my expectations or in other words it's just not my kind of roast beef. Both the meat and sause taste blurry and weak. It's surely tender but the taste just doesn't stand out much. However, I'd still recommend checking it out yourself, as I often hear that many many foreigners just love...