Danke

Rating: Not great
Meal: Dinner
Price: 4286 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Steak and some drinks
English Menu: No
Smoking: No

At last I'm caught up with my backlog!  Last night I was in Yokohama again to meet a friend and afterwards ate at what I think is the last restaurant in this particular underground area of Isetan.  Danke is a german themed izakaya, but they seem at pains to scare away foreigners, from the greeting (In Japanese:  "Can you read Japanese?") to the completely Japanese menus (except for drinks!).

I went for a good looking steak that was quite disappointing when it showed up...it was much smaller than expected for the price.  Anywhoo, I ate it, quaffed some whiskey and got outta there.

RRainbow

Rating: OK
Meal:  Dinner
Price:  4500 yen
Payment:  Credit cards accepted
Dishes:  L-bone steak
English Menu: Yes
Smoking:  No

Another meeting in Yokohama, another underground restaurant.  I was sucked in by the big pictures of a "meat festival" at RRainbow (I am not messing with the ampersand in the name), a Hawaiian themed restaurant.  The steak wasn't very good and was quite chewy.  It was also quite expensive.  Oh well...should have stuck with the Hawaiian dishes!

Quite rare..I wasn't asked

Kinboshi

Rating: OK
Meal:  Lunch for 2
Price:  3240 yen
Payment:  Cash only
Dishes:  Two nigiri lunch sets
English Menu: No
Smoking: Yes

My wife and I were in Oppama and decided to find somewhere to eat.  After looking around in the scorching heat, we quickly settled on Kinboshi, a cool and slightly refreshing retreat, except for the occasional cigarette smoke from customers.  It's a sushi joint, and everything is hardcore Japanese.  Luckily we read and speak enough to order the "better than average" sushi lunch set.

The sushi came out and was ok, if not amazing.  It was a good amount of food for lunch and the price wasn't bad either.

Kikuya

Rating: Very good
Meal: Dinner for3
Price: $134
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Steak and salmon
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

Kikuya is a teppanyaki style restaurant located inside of the New Sanno Hotel, which is a military owned and operated hotel in downtown Tokyo.  We were staying there with my mother and thought it was time to try it out.

California roll!

The menu is fairly simple, so choosing isn't hard.  It was a very good meal, but some of the ingredients quality (particularly the rice) was sub-par and obviously not sourced from Japan.  That drops it down from a potential low Excellent to a high Very Good.

The chicken tempura was surprisingly good

Our chef

My steak cooking

My wife's salmon cooking

My steak cooked

My wife's salmon cooked

My mom's steak

Creme brulee

The cheese cake was exceptionally good

New Light

Rating: OK
Meal:  Lunch 1.5
Price:  1700 yen
Payment:  Cash only
Dishes:  Beef tongue curry and some drinks
English Menu: Yes
Smoking:Most definitely

My mom and I were trying to find a snack and an escape from the heat in Asakusa and thought we spied a Thai restaurant.  We made a mistake and went in the wrong door and ended up in a kissaten (old style smokey cafe).  Oh well, my mom ordered a dish and I had something to drink.  It wasn't great, but wasn't bad, just your typical Japanese curry.

Alze

Rating: Very good
Meal: Dinner for 2
Price: ? yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes: Chicken and wine
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

This place is across from the New Sanno and my wife were able to eat there the other night.  It was very chill, and we got a seat right up next to the tv which was playing Japanese baseball, distracting my wife the whole time.  That's ok, she was loving it.

The place is a bit fancy and pricey...for some reason I forgot to record the price...oh well.

We had some fancy fries, some fancy chicken, not fancy wine (it was red and chilled...weird) and some fancy dessert.  It was quite tasty and fun.

Ueno Chinese Restaurant

Rating: Not great
Meal: Lunch for 5
Price: 5500 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes: Dishes
English Menu: No
Smoking: Yes

Pretty terrible Chinese restaurant I ate at with my family a while back...can't remember much except it wasn't very good.  I couldn't understand the name when it was pronounced to me either. Pictures:

This was pretty good

Spicy pig entrails, not bad

Cashew chicken...ok

Fried noodles...meh

Fried rice, not bad

Almond jello..meh

Chicken wings in a flavorless brown sauce, not great

The absolute worst, nasty sesame balls ever...

Amimoto Oba

Rating: OK
Meal:  Lunch for 3
Price:  4000 yen
Payment:  Cash only
Dishes:  Cold soba and tempura teishoku, gyudon, katsudon, sausages
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

We took my mother out to Hakone yesterday and found a spot to eat lunch.  Amimoto Oba is a soba/udon restaurant right on Lake Ashinoko.   Beautiful views of the surrounding mountains, swan boats, and the occasional pirate ship ferry that goes from one end of the lake to the other were on display.

Sausages

My mother had expressed an interest in cold noodles, so she got a cold soba with tempura teishoku.  It came with small fish, presumably fished out from the lake, and some vegetable tempura.  The fish was meant to be eaten whole and was fine I guess.  The rest of the dish was pretty much what you'd expect.  I got a gyudon (beef bowl) and my wife got a katsudon (deep fried pork cutlet bowl).  Both came with the usual slightly sweet egg and onion mixture that you'd expect, and both were quite tasty.  I wanted a little more protein as I did not eat most of my rice, so I ordered a sausage plate which was quite tasty with a mixture of various types of German style sausages.

Soba tempura set

We decided on a high Ok rating for this place as it wasn't really a standout place, but it was overall quite delicious.

Gyudon

Katsudon