Katsusen

Rating: Very good
Meal: Dinner for 3
Price: 6120 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: 3 tonkatsu teishoku
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

My aunt came to visit us recently and on her way out via Haneda we took her to a tonkatsu restaurant there as she hadn't yet had any.  I was surprised to see I had never reviewed this particular tonkatsu restaurant (Katsusen) before, so I took a few quick photos, but forgot to get the outside sign.

The quality of the katsu itself was quite high, and I enjoyed the red miso soup, a bit of a rarity in these parts.  I was a bit surprised to find when I looked the place up that it is owned by the Wako group, which runs a chain of very decent tonkatsu restaurants you can find everywhere.

Port-side Kitchen

Rating: OK
Meal: Lunch for 3
Price: 6360 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Chicken curry, Katsu curry, steak
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

Another trip to Haneda to drop my son off results in another review.  This time we ate at Port-side Kitchen which advertises itself as serving "youshoku" i.e. Japanified versions of Western food.  My son picked it over the other remaining options.

Small salad

My son went for the straight up chicken curry with rice, my wife got the katsu curry, while I got the steak with no rice or bread (which normally come with it...I'm trying to avoid carbs these days).  All the food was pleasant enough, but not amazing.  My steak was pretty good, if tiny.  All of the meals came with a small salad and soup.  It was overall quite expensive, which puts this rating at a low Ok, verging on Not Great.

Small soup

Katsu curry

Chicken curry

Steak with pepper sauce

Esse Due

Rating: Not great
Meal: Lunch for3
Price: 6285 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Two pizzas, tomato mozzarella basil, sliced meat platter
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

I've actually eaten at this place before, prior to starting to do these reviews.  As the options for something new at Haneda are getting fewer, and my son was with us, we decided to go back here for his last meal in Japan prior to flying back to boarding school.

I wasn't very impressed...everything was very expensive, and not particularly delicious. 

Haneda Cafeteria

Rating: Not great
Meal: Lunch for 2
Price: 2160 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Two teishoku sets, one ginger pork, one katsu-nabe
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No but there is an isolated smoking section

As we continue to work our way though the restaurants in Haneda, my wife and I decided to try this unassuming little cafeteria over the left side of the outside area as we picked up my son from the airport yesterday.  You walk up to the counter, make your order, then site down and wait for delivery.

Ginger pork

The options were pretty standard fair for Japanese "shokudou" (cafeteria style restaurants) and we got two of our usual favorites, ginger pork and katsu-nabe.  Both dishes were just ok, but the higher than usual prices dropped the overall rating down a notch.  

Katsu-nabe

There are definitely better places to eat at Haneda and we still have several more to go before we can just go back to the best ones all the time.  Luckily we have frequent trips there due to our son's boarding school situation, so eventually I'll get them all reviewed.

One note is that it is unusual in still having a smoking section, well isolated from the rest of the restaurant.  One of the few places left you can smoke in comfort.

Setagaya

Rating: Very good
Meal: Lunch for 3
Price:  4000 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes: Chicken shio ramen, Setagaya special shio ramen, Setagaya special tonkotsu ramen, fried tofu, menma platter
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

We left from Haneda for Manila the other day and were there with time to grab some lunch.  Setagaya is a ramen restaurant that I've seen lines at most times we've been there so we hadn't tried it yet.  We decided to give it a shot.  After a while awkwardly standing in line, some people came up and jumped to the front of the line, bought tickets, and then formed a second line.  We read the posted sign closer and it said "buy your ticket first, then stand in line".  So that's why there was always a line!

Deep fried tofu (there were 4 pieces total)

Now that we understood we bought our food tickets, stood in line and waited to be seated.  The lunch crowed was just thinning out so it took a while one of the 3 tables to open up.  Eventually we got our ramen, all of which was quite good.  The shio broth had a definite hint of bonito in it, and the tonkotsu was milky white with hakata style noodles. 

Menma platter

All 3 of us enjoyed it thoroughly, but I'm not sure I would wait in line again unless I was alone.

Special shio

Chicken shio

Tonkotsu

Sukinoko

Rating: Very good
Meal: Lunch
Price:  1000 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Ginger pork teishoku
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

Went to pick up my son from the airport on Saturday and tried another restaurant called Sukinoko.  It's down a hallway where all the smoking restaurants used to be, but it looks like Haneda is adopting the no smoking in public restaurants policy that Tokyo is trying to force down the country's throat early.  So good news if you hate smoking!  Bad news otherwise...

The other interesting thing about this restaurant is that it is 24 hours, always a nice thing to know in any airport.  They do charge 10% more during late hours, but hey, if you are here and hungry at least you can find some food.

And the food here is actually pretty decent!  I had a really cheap and filling meal of a ginger pork teishoku that came with some delicious slices of kabocha and a pepper.  All the flavors were popping nicely and I really enjoyed it.

Yuki Akari

Rating: Not great
Meal: Lunch for 2
Price: 2060 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Butter corn miso ramen, butter corn salt ramen
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

Back at Haneda airport after our trip to Okinawa, we arrived in time for lunch, so we tried another restaurant.  Yuki Akari is a place that purports to server Sapporo style butter miso ramen, which we love, so we gave it a shot.  Unfortunately the food wasn't very good and we can't really recommend it.

Butter miso ramen

Butter corn shio ramen

Hitoshinaya

Rating: Very good
Meal: Lunch for 2
Price:  2400 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Oyakodon, butadon
English Menu: No (I don't think so but it is an airport so they might)
Smoking: No

My wife and I flew to Okinawa for the weekend for a roller derby tournament.  We always prefer to fly out of Haneda as it is much closer than Narita airport.  This is actually our second time to fly out of the domestic terminal but the first was way back before I started this blog, so I have no reviews from then.

Delicious dashi broth

There are quite a few restaurants to eat at in the Haneda Domestic terminal and we took our time picking one.  Eventually we settled on Hitoshinaya which is actually 3 little mini restaurants, each with a separate entrance.  There is the "don" section where we ate, consisting of different "stuff on rice" bowls; the "breakfast" section consisting of Japanese breakfast food, and the "men" section consisting of ramen.

Butadon

It's a very nicely laid out place with pleasant decor.  They served us a cup of dashi broth to drink like tea, which was delicious.  We joked that Haneda has become synonymous with dashi for us and a visit isn't complete without a cup from either Nihonbashi Dashi in the International terminal or from Hitoshinaya in the Domestic.

Oyakodon

The food was quite tasty, more so than we expected, so I decided on a Very Good for this place.  I look forward to trying the other 2 sections in the future.

Ariso Sushi

Rating: OK
Meal: Lunch for 2
Price: 4620 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes:  Several sushi dishes
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

Well we were back at Haneda Airport today to pick up my son who is on spring break from school.  Since he gets in at 2pm it's the perfect opportunity to try out a new restaurant.  Today we opted for the sushi-go-round restaurant Ariso.  There was no sushi on the track at the time we went however so we ordered the old fashioned way.  They are not very helpful to foreigners, but all the information is there if you know how to use it.  The menus are well illustrated with pictures and numbers, and there is a piece of paper at the table you can put down how many plates of each number you want.  Give this to the waitress or sushi chef and your plates will start coming in.

The quality of the sushi was pretty good, but the portions were small, prices high and the variety low.  I have to say our local Chuo Sushi in Yokosuka blows this place out of the water.  If you're arriving in Haneda or departing and want to have great sushi, I don't suggest it.