Seirinkan

Famous restaurant living on its past glory. As former expat who lived in Japan for more than 5 years I came here couple of times. First time coming back to Japan post pandemic on a nostalgic trip visiting all the places I frequent in the past. Many of them have changed and unfortunately Seirinkan is one of them.

Food:

Margherita - 70% of the pizza was crust only 30% had toppings on it. Understandably a good portion of the Margherita is like that but not at this proportion. Pre-pandemic theirs definitely weren’t like that. Crust was overly salted and heavily burnt at the bottom. The couple sat next to us basically left all the crust and the server did not bother to ask them if there was anything wrong.

Bongole Bianco - They switched to the smaller clams and did not purge the sand out properly. Because of the change the pasta no longer has the umami used to have. Pasta was too soft I personally like more of al dente.

Toromisu - Their version of Tiramisu, didn’t have this before. Bits of lady fingers saturated with espresso and no rum or any other liqueur , the cream could not taste the mascarpone at all. Because of the over saturated lady fingers bits you will have one bite that’s is overly bitter and another has none of the coffee taste.

Service :

The most unpleasant portion of the meal. Walked in at 6pm. Asked if there were seats for two without reservation in Japanese. Luckily not like other reviews we weren’t turned down because we are foreigners. The male chef politely asked us if we were okay if dining time was only one hour, which we accept as we were heading elsewhere anyway. As soon as we got seated the female server with the shxtface came asked if we were ready to order. We literally just sat down and I still had my jacket on didn’t have time to take it off. Told her to come back in five. As their menu is all in katakana and we thought will be easier to just read the English Menu thus we asked her to brought us one. This is when everything went down hill. Her attitude changed from I could care less to I don’t want you guys here. Took our order and asked “what drink you want?” Literally this in Japanese, normal Japanese service this is not acceptable at all. We told her we only want water, she replied we must order one drink each. We ordered, but it was not written anywhere on the menu or in the restaurant. We quickly finished our meal and got out of there.