Tonkatsu Yamabe — Restaurant in Tokyo

We went there a bit later at night so there was a line but we waited like 20 mins inside to be served. The semi old lady who speak Japanese but doesn’t look like Japanese at the shop was quite rude while other staff like chef, young lady and other Japanese ladies were very nice. We didn’t expected 5 stars service but she seated us, gave my partner tea and pickle. Skipped me and gave the man who later came seated next to me the tea. I think it’s because she didn’t look where she goes or what she is doing. I asked her if I may get the tea after 10 mins of watching her walking around doing random things. She looks totally loss like she trying to do many things but didn’t do them properly. She was looked down at me and get the tea without apology or sorry for the wait. The pork cutlet was very good. The fish has many bones in it and prawn was very small. Not worth ordering it. Stick with pork as they are juicy and tender.

Overall, it was still a nice meal. Other staff apart from that lady were working really hard, efficiently and friendly. The food was good but not like wow amazing! Small thing like salad didn’t serve with any dressing made me feel like there are many other tonkatsu places that giver better quality food. Other said this place is cheap and I can see Japanese people had dinner there after work so it is more like casual fast easy dinner than the place you must eat when you...

This place came highly recommended and it was probably the hype surrounding it that led to some slight disappointment on my end.

When we arrived there were about 5-6 people ahead of us. It took maybe 35 minutes before we were seated, but they took our order while we waited outside so our food came soon after sitting down.

The atmosphere is of a Showa-era eatery, but clean and well kept. The tea they served was quite good, and the yuzu flavored pickled daikon we snacked on while we waited was similarly unique and tasty.

My wife ordered the normal katsu, and I ordered the double for a few hundred more yen, but honestly they looked to be the same amount. The katsu was delicious, but a bit too thick and chewy for me. The breading also refused to stay on, which is something I can be a little picky about. I will say that their sauce was a little thinner and less sour than your garden variety, which fit my palette quite well.

Overall it was very good, but not good enough to elevate it above your typical katsu chain restaurant style. If you're in the neighborhood it's worth checking out, but probably not worth waiting...

Very impressed with their approach to efficiency. I got there with my two kids today at 11AM hoping to get in early and avoid taking up valuable seating as I expected to order only two sets to split among the three of us (kids are 4 and 8). But there was a huge line when I got there. So I missed the first wave of seating by 4 people. They took my order while I was in 1 of the 4 seats inside for waiting. They were very polite and had a menu for non-Japanese folks (English, Chinese and Korean it looks like). They gave me the choice of seating afterwards for upstairs (tables) or downstairs with bar. The chefs saw that I had little ones so they separated the mustard and also cut up the pork into smaller than usual pieces. They did not have any issues with my two orders for 3 seats. I would recommend them to anyone and everyone. And the line was even longer when we left....