TOKYO — Restaurant in Municipality of Olaya

Me and my husband loves restaurant hopping. Next on our list was The Tokyo Restaurant. We're excied!

Upon entry, we were greeted by a welcoming concierge and assured us for a table for two. We waited no longer than 5 minutes then we were escorted to our table in an orderly fashioned.

The ambiance in Tokyo Restaurant is amazing. Authentic Japanese arts, and interior designs, everywhere. It's Tokyo in the heart of Riyadh. 😌

We were assisted by a Filipino waiter named Harvey. We were asking him about the menu- their best sellers and what dish he would want to recommend for us to try. In our surprise, he knows the dishes by heart. He recommended good tasting steak medium rare, the green tea dessert. We ordered, beef ramen, samurai, the 🥟 dumplings (i forgot the name), chicken cream soup. For the juices, we ordered mixed berries, and the one with banana 🥤 smoothie.

You can customize your order depending on your sensitivity. If you are allergic to crustaceans, you can tell the waiter to remove them and replace with what's available. Harvey did a great job in assisting me with that. Thank you Harvey.

While we were eating, our waiter, Harvey, treated us like VIPs and ofcorse, me and my husband loved the care. He made sure the foods were properly set and eaten.

At last, we ended up our dining experience with the amazing green tea dessert. You would need to break the middle part of that crunchy dessert then the soft green cake falls in to the fish bowl-like containment and, i recommend you to mix it well. Especially the orange gello at the bottom. The orange gelatine is super sour and sweet at the same time, so if you will not mix them well, you will end up consuming the super sweet/soury gello.

We told this small issue to Harvey, wonderfully he took it well then gave his suggestions: that next time, it will be better if they will place the orange gelatine on a separate dish for the customers choice of sweetness.

Then Harvey took the liberty in calling their manager, and talked to him. He told us the history of Tokyo Restaurant and gave us the floor to take videos and pictures and toured us around the huge restaurant.

1st floor: mixed dining (singles and families); 2nd floor: live cooking with expert cheff, good for 6 persons per room. There are other rooms at the 2nd floor for group dining. 6 or more people.

The price for the food we ordered 480SAR.

Not bad for good ambiance, good reception, warm service with tender, love and care, and ofcorse the mouth watering, organic, healthy foods.

Trust rating: 5 Food: 4.5 (due to sweetness of dessert) Service: 5

Overall quality rating:...

3 starts as this place has gotten worse since the expansion, and not to mention the Japanese partner / head chef has been gone for a while now.. I have visited this place on a number of occasions since then...

This place used to be a little memory from Japan. As soon as you walk in you are greeted by the Japanese daily newspapers on the left side (which was mostly meant for Japanese expats..) however I would call it a bit of advertising to showcase how much this genuine place is... Loved every bit of it though, as well as the air purifiers in every corner.

Then You've got the actual food it self which was a genuine mix of modern Japanese food.

After you've finished eating you could always wash it down with some quality drinks from Japan "bottled fizzy drinks and green tea" or local drinks.

On your way to the lavatory... Just as you walk in.. you find a nice poster of the " Fuji long distance series " racing if my memory serves me right ... Those little touches left an impact of what a local Japanese restaurant in Tokyo is.

All that is in the past a good 10 years back...

Now to the present ( the dreadful looking lounge décor )

My order;

Nigiri eel sashimi, which is not bad.

Some random bits and pieces of sushi that the missus ordered that were mediocre at best.

Green salad which was nice, would have appreciated though if whoever prepared it has changed the gloves as it tasted of another pre-prepared seafood.

Chicken katsu curry, not as good as it used to be..

Special crab salad... Looks like It was a little bit off... I wouldn't order it again. I mean cmon how hard is it to mess up "processed crab bits"

And finally please include little bowls so I can skoop rice directly into my mouth and not look silly trying to pick every bit from a flat plate with chopsticks..

Lastly the staff are great as always and the place is clean however the air con is a bit too cold.

I'm sure people would love the place though as most of my less cultured mates like it more now... Assuming it reminds them of a lounge they...

Well, well, well, if it isn't Mr. Fancy Pants trying to impress his date with an overpriced average Japanese restaurant. Let me tell you, the only thing crispy about those salmon rolls was the sound they made when I dropped them on the floor after taking a bite. And the yakiudon? More like yaki-dud, am I right? Good service but freaking average food where menu items doesn’t match the actual items. It was so average, I felt like I could've made it myself with some udon noodles and a bottle of soy sauce. Lead my misleading reviews we end up at Tokyo restaurant ready to savor the best possible Japanese food in town but hey… what a disappointment:(; Normally you would expect your Yaki Udon dish to be made from thick fresh wheat noodles but when my order arrived it looked like disastrous implementation of stir fried noodles by someone who cooks it for the first time without following proportions and ends ups with soggy bad looking dish. Fried rice was bland as it could ever be. And don't even get me started on the crab salad. I've seen better-looking crab in a cartoon, and I'm pretty sure the "salad" was just a pile of shredded lettuce with a couple of tiny crab shreds and overdressed mayo sauce thrown in for good measure.

In short, if you're looking for a good laugh and don't mind overpaying for mediocrity and overpriced tiny sushi’s 5$ per each this place is for you. But if you actually want good and authentic Japanese food, do yourself a favor and go somewhere else. For comparison I will post Yaki Udon photo from this restaurant and the one we have in US and Japan. Very...