Toriki — Restaurant in Tokyo

An absolute delight and a great introductory restaurant to chicken sashimi made from jidori chicken.

A quaint and small restaurant in Sumida, just a short walk from Kinshi park. You'll notice the store right away from the small seat outside and the long thin vertical shutters that hide the front of the shop.

There's been a lot of talk about how the staff is unwelcoming or impatient, but I didn't get ANY of that when I visited.

We had a 5:30PM reservation, they greeted us in, we were the first to be seated, they had one intermediate English-speaking staff who advised us on the menu. We ate amazing food, enjoyed the ambiance, quietly discussed taisho's technique, thanked them for the meal, left cordially.

There's three dishes that I want to point out, the chicken sashimi, the soup, and the chochin skewer.

You would not even known that the chicken sashimi was raw unless you bite each bite in half and looked at the soft pinkness beneath. It just tasted like good clean chicken fat and flesh. The outside of each skewer piece is lightly cooked white and a tender bite is all it takes to rip through the dish.

The chochin skewer, which is not part of the dinner course and must be ordered ala carte, is a must-try while you're here. The bulbs of yolk just pop in your mouth and coats the chicken in yolky goodness. Don't think of your cheap discount eggs, these are yolks that ready to rat straight out of the shell. It's practically an oyakodon on a stick.

The chicken soup is a curse of sorts. It's just good clean chicken dashi, nothing more, but there's a clean and subtle flavor that just seeps through you. I've been going crazy trying to find something even remotely like it here in the states, but they just can't get it even 1% right. It was like I was drinking the soul of the chicken.

Now, excuse me as I monologue about Mad Magazine while staring broodingly...

Service is the biggest shortage. The management/operation style was questionable and not efficient, so a meal can easily take over 4 hours (5:30-9:30 for me) and you just kept waiting for other customers who came later to catch up, and during that long wait there was nothing else you can do than keep ordering alcohol drinks(I tried to see if I can get free water served, but the staff never responded. They only promptly respond to requests that will cost you $). I made the reservation online with a course meal+3 sake pairing. Not necessarily pairing, just 3 small glasses of sake that you can order whenever you want, instead of pairing with specific food items. The third sake was missed (staff forgot to serve) but the owner/chef insisted that it was already served and I was lying about not getting the third sake. It went back and forth between us for multiple rounds and made me extremely uncomfortable as the owner was very firm and treated me like a liar. Eventually he asked the staff to apologize with no further compensation (due to miscommunication I guess, the Japanese customer, who sat next to me and tried to speak up for me during our “heated episode”, told me that he believed the owner will waive the cost of the extra items I ordered as a gesture of apology due to his mistreatment to me, but it was not the case). And it was not even the staff’s mistake. He might be busy so he missed the order, but that’s totally understandable. What’s unacceptable was the chef’s attitude and his approach towards the whole situation. But he never even tried to own his mistake but instead just saying that it was the...

I had high expectations for this Michelin-starred Yakitori restaurant during my trip to Tokyo, but unfortunately, it ended up being the most disappointing experience of my visit. Here are the issues I encountered:

Food Quality: The dishes served were underwhelming, lacking the finesse and flavor one would expect from a Michelin-starred establishment. Several yakitori skewers listed on the menu were also missing from our order, which was quite disappointing.

Service: From the moment we entered, the atmosphere felt unwelcoming, particularly towards tourists. The chef was notably stern and overly watchful of our group's behavior, which made us uncomfortable. Despite having multiple shopping bags, no assistance was offered to help us settle in, and the chef explicitly instructed us not to place our bags near our seats, using a harsh tone and stern look. It took some effort to finally arrange our belongings in a designated area as directed by him.

Wait Time: The service was incredibly slow, with our dinner stretching to three hours. This long wait significantly detracted from our dining experience.

Unequal Treatment: I was particularly taken aback at the end of our meal when only the women in our group were offered dessert, while the men were inexplicably overlooked. This inconsistency was confusing and seemed unfair.

Overall, the experience did not meet the high standards expected of a restaurant with such a distinguished reputation. To be fair, there are numerous other dining options available that provide superior quality at a more...