Torafugutei Ginzaten

The food was great and I love the multiple meals. Albeit the language barrier made it hard to know what was coming next, but they always made us feel welcomed. We even got our own room to enjoy our food in private with paper screen doors. The food was delicious and very flavorful.

Visited May 2015

The location for foreigners to this city may find it difficult on your own, but the Japanese cultural upbringing shines through with how much people here make an effort to help you. In our case, we caught a taxi from our hotel to the restaurant. Though raining steadily, the taxi driver made sure we ...exited the cab on the curbside, then walked us into the building to the restaurant's front door. Once inside, we were greeted and led downstairs to a booth for our meal. By using a language app, I was able to communicate with the hostess our desires for drinks and the meal. I will not pretend to be an expert on fugu dining, because this was my very first. The salad was quite tasty, with green onions, thinly sliced sweet round onions, and thinly sliced fish parts (not sure which parts they were, but some were clear and textured strips and some were probably strips cut near the skin, since there were strips of greys and some black skin. The sashimi platters, one for each person dining, had two types of sashimi. One was a little more chewy, but still great tasting with the ponzu sauce, and the other was melt-in-your-mouth great! The third dish was the nabe soup with two types of mushrooms, green onions, rice noodles, Napa cabbage, konbu (dried seaweed for soup stock) and silky soft tofu blocks. We placed all the veggies in the boiling soup (there's a control panel with a range of settings to heat up your meal in front of you), then placed the tofu and fish parts last. In hindsight, we probably should have placed the fish parts first and have the flavor boiled into the soup, since these were the remaining parts with a few bits of fishmeat on the bones and lots of gelatinous material. Finally, while consuming the cooked veggies and fish, you can dip these into the bowl of soy sauce for added flavor. After filling our satisfied appetites, we were asked if we would like to try some rice porridge! They took the pot with the leftover soup, veggies and some fish remnants back into the kitchen. In there, they added rice, eggs, green onions, and miso paste to produce quite a tasty miso soup dish! The evening was topped off with a serving of senbei (thin light wafers) sandwiched around ice cream drizzled with caramel syrup. For my first experience, I found it quite enjoyable and pleasureable. The staff here were very patient with our language barrier and very polite and helpful with our novice behavior. I would definitely return again without hesitation!

My first experience with fugu fish--excellent quality, many variations on the menu. Also, the menu was well-done for English-speaking visitors, with not only English explanations, but also pictures of the food. We ate at the counter, where you can see the live fugu fish (blow fish) in a tank, awai...ting their demise. The presentation was very pretty, which seems to be a highlight of most Japanese restaurants. And there was also a friendly English-speaking server provided for us, which was very thoughtful. The only suggestion I have is that they add more sides to the menu, since we were still hungry and ended up going to a nearby Italian restaurant for a couple of small plates to fill our appetite. The service was very quick, perhaps because of the limited menu. We would definitely come back next time we're back in Tokyo.

Visited September 2013