Nadai Unatoto — Restaurant in Tokyo

If you don't follow me, I am a Japanese American foodie generally looking for good Japanese food in America (Southern California specifically - my current home). However I was in Japan recently and one thing I know I can't get in America is some good Unagi so one of my goals during my short stay in Japan was to get some Unagi. Unfortunately, Japanese Unagi is has become very scarce in Japan leading to a hike in price. All the places (that I consider good) would cost a good 5000+ yen (around $50) per person for a bowl fairly small and yet, these places are packed with people lined up for hours and didn't go well with my schedule in Japan. So I went to the next best place which is a chain restaurant but prices are much more manageable. Welcome to Unatoto. This is like the Unagi store equivalent of Chili's I guess. My fairly massive unagi as seen in my pictures cost me only about $20 and tasted soo much better than any I've had in America. This particular location is like a 2 minute walk from the Ueno Station, hidden around the corner. It's actually right underneath the train tracks. My reason for giving it a 3 star is the following: because you're under the train tracks, when the train goes by (which is often since it's Japan), you can totally hear it and feel it rattle every couple of minutes, the place is small so it can get smokey inside with the grilling of the eel, and because it's a chain restaurant, you're not going to get the best tasting but if all that is okay with you, which it was for me, I would totally give this place a 4 star, maybe even a 5 because of the price. At least this location (and I'll assume other locations also) has a tablet for ordering and there is an English option so I will highly recommend it for native English people as well. Also, if you have found yourself not as satisfied with the quantity of food per serving in Japan, I would also recommend getting the eel with extra rice noted as "oomori". Everything is identical in quantity except you get more rice, but at the time of this review, there is no additional charge for extra rice. Even in English, it just states oomori so if your Japanese vocabulary is limited, you'll probably wonder why there are two of the same items with one saying "oomori" but price is...

This restaurant is a good place if you want to get an basic idea what unagi tastes like. When entering the shop you get an impression of an rough and pragmatic style of atmosphere. Its kind of messy - you have dirty trash cans in eyesight even when seated, card board boxes are piled up between tables, and the lighting is very direct and brught. This place is basically all about unagi just like the menus are spouting about it. Everything else is of lesser interest. Thats why you will find yourself choosing between 6 dishes that are basically all the the same and just differ in the amount of unagi you will get. Don't think you will get more rice just because they print the 1000 yen bowl twice as big as the 500 yen bowl on the menu. Although the unagi is the only thing changing in size its just changing vanishingly low from dish to dish. Therefore you won't be "double the full" if you go for double the price. As a consequence the different sizes of the printed images of the dish are not there to inform you about size - it mainly informs you about its popularity, which doesn't make the decision easier. We settled for the 3/4 unagi Eal with the liver soup and tororo. The eal came, presentation ok, and taste okay. It was heavy on seasoning with a sweet taste, but still nice to eat.

With a bill of 2,300¥ we didn't get really satisfied and our excitement about unagi lowered itself. Nice thing though: the sounds of the train passing over the shop are...

HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT.

Hunger sale? We arrived at 5.15pm on Sat and waited for 1.5 hours to get a table. We were surprised to be led to level 2 and found out it was totally empty. What is the rational behind it - letting a long queue of customers waiting for more than 1 hour to get their food, while you have one whole extra level's space that can easily seat more than 30 more people?

Rude to foreigners Our server was rude when my husband tried to move the air con fan direction as it got really cold. I ordered big portion unagi don while my husband ordered small portion unagi don. The server did not even ask who the big portion was for, and he put the big portion unagi directly in front of my husband (hello stereotype at 21st century that women can't eat more than men??) I observed he greeted other tables of locals. And by the time when we checked out, we pressed the payment button at the iPad, and the iPad showed a waiter would come our way. However, he totally ignored us, and we pressed again. This time he came over and said payment downstairs. Well, why can't he tell us early, instead of keeping us wait?

Super noisy at level 2. We could clearly hear the train passed by above us with extremely loud & disturbing sounds. If you care about atmosphere, do not choose level 2 table.

Overall, food is decent given the affordable price, but it is definitely not worth the wait nor the...