Kyoto kaiseki meal from Minokichi @ Tobu Ikebukuro, Tokyo

Kaiseki is a traditional Japanese multi-course meal. The meal originated from many centuries ago in the simple meals served at tea ceremony but later evolved into extensive dining style with multi-course items. From kaiseki meals, special skills and techniques are required to prepare the meal which are carefully presented on plates that are chosen to enhance the appearance and seasonal theme of the meal. Dishes are beautifully arranged and garnished with leaves and flowers. Edible garnishes are added to resemble natural flora and fauna. We were amazed with the service here from the time we walk in until we left which is outstanding.

Taste:8/10(Delicious. The sashimi in the bento set is the best item. The food overall were good and balanced presentation of food).
Price:5/10(Near expensive. The bento set kaiseki lunch cost 2,160 Yen including 8% consumption tax).


The meal starts off with tofu sesame as appetizer.

The meal comes in the form of bento box.


This is what the bento box contains.

Grilled fish, tamago, prawn, tofu and some seasonal ingredient.

delicate bean curd, sashimi, tofu and dessert of fruits and vegetables.

Vegetable soup.

Rice with crab meat.

Pickled vegetables.

This slice of sashimi fish is amazingly good.

Some form of fish cake wrapped using leaves.

The staff there are so concern and helpful. They even have nice cloth to cover their customer bag to avoid any food which may drop on it.


Very nice restaurant and outstanding service.

Promotional set menu.

Food model on the display. Don't know Japanese, no problem. Just order by seeing what you like here.

Coordinate/GPS: 35.730823, 139.710297
Address : Spice Ikebukuro Tobu Bldg. 15F 1-1-25 Nishi-ikebukuro, Toshima-ku, Tokyo 171-0021
Phone: +81(3)3980-8855
Public transport : 3 minutes on foot from Ikebukuro Station on the JR, Subway or Tobu Tojo line. (Take the west exit).

Yummy ramen at Mutekiya @ Ikebukuro, Tokyo

Mutekiya is a popular ramen shop in Ikebukuro. They are famous for their delicious pork belly in the rich ramen soup. They have menu in various languages, so ordering a meal here shouldn't be a problem. The staff can understand English as well. Be ready to queue about 30 minutes when you arrive to this restaurant. There is only 17 seats in the restaurant and you will satisfy with the waiting time once you have your ramen in the shop. The "chashyu" (pork belly) in the ramen here are know to be the most tender and delicious.

Taste:10/10(Excellent. Thick and flavourful soup. With cloudy and rich soup from pork and chicken simmered for 16 hours, no doubt that the soup is great. The pork is odorless, sweet and enough portion of fat which melts in your mouth. The noodles were cooked to the correct level which soaked up the soup aroma into the noodles).
Price:6/10(Moderate. The bowl of hontorotokumarumen that I ordered cost 1,030 Yen. The pricing for large and small portion of noodles are the same).


Mouth watering ramen with thickest soup. I choose hontorotokumarumen. This is among their most popular ramen with very thick soup. The others are nikutamamen and honmarumen. It comes with one slice of delicious pork belly, seasoned bamboo shoot, seaweed, an egg, some vegetables and spring onion.

Delicious bowl of ramen with melts in your mouth pork slice.

In mutekiya, they provide raw fresh garlic. Use the tongs to press raw garlic and squeeze the juice over your ramen noodles.


The egg were done just right. The egg yolk still in half cooked in liquid but not harden. The yolk colour resemble that they use better quality egg.

Fresh whole garlic and spicy pickles are provided.

Usual long queue outside Mutekiya restaurant. You will forget about the queue once you tasted the ramen.

The frying pan showing the ingredient in honmarumen.

GPS/Coordinate: 35.726911, 139.711548
Address: 1-17-1 Sakimoto Building 1F, Minamiikebukuro, Toshima, Tokyo.
Phone: +81 3-3982-7656
Opening Hours: 10:30am-4.00am
Public transport: Ikebukuro train station in Tokyo.