Review: Brunch at Tokyo (Boston)

Tokyo Restaurant
307 Fresh Pond Parkway
(at the Fresh Pond Rotaries)
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Phone: (617)876-6600

The Boston Sushi Society met for the Brunch Buffet at the Tokyo Restaurant.  There were 20 of us who ventured out on Saturday morning for the $12.95 all-you-can-eat (AYCE) buffet.  The buffet starts at 11:45 AM, we arrived at noon and the place was fairly empty, but within about a half-hour the restaurant filled up.  If you want to come later, it might help to make reservations.  We were seated in one of the side rooms, which we had to ourselves to eat and carouse at our leisure.

Decor

Tokyo is a very pretty restaurant.  The dark wood tables and comfortable chairs let you settle in and enjoy the indirect lighting, dark noren, pale shoji, and fresh flower ikebana - done by the owner's daughter, who was our hostess for the afternoon.  There is a sushi bar across the back wall, a regular bar across the front, low tables along both sides of the main dining room, and private tatami rooms off to one side.  (The tatami rooms can be reserved for an extra $25 charge.)  If you sit at the western tables in the main dining room you keep your shoes on, but for the low tables and tatami rooms, you stow them in the small shoe cupboards by the stairs.  (If you want to sit at one of the low tables, wear your sharp socks and leave the 30-eyelet Docs at home.)  There is a coat check for the winter coats.  The small parking lot next door can fill up, but there is usually easy, free parking either in the lot or on the adjoining street.  Tokyo is definitely a place to eat and relax, as we found out when the last of our group left at 3:00. :)

Service

Although we were serving ourselves, tea was brought to our table as soon as we sat down.  Water glasses were refilled fairly frequently, and used dishes were taken away quickly.  When one of our group ordered Cokes, they came to the table fairly quickly as well.  Service has been a real problem at the Tokyo, but the AYCE gives you the excellent decor and food without the usually slow, forgetful waitresses.  We left about a 10% tip for the speedy busboys.

Food

The buffet was laid out on long tables down the center of the restaurant. A small table to the side held the soups.  The soup table had a large pot of miso and a half dozen varieties of tidbits to add to your soup.  There were fish cake slices, meatballs, dumplings, fish balls, and other bits, along with sliced scallions and crumbled nori to float on top.  There were also pots of dobin mushi and cups of chawan mushi on the main table.  I thought the dobin mushi was a little light on the tidbits of meat and mushrooms that are inside, but I still had two pots.  The broth was excellent, although one pot was only lukewarm.  None of our party had the chawan mushi, but it has always been very good at Tokyo.  It's a very filling custard soup, and one at our table passed it by to concentrate on the rest of the offerings.

The main table had cooked food on the near end and sushi on the far end. Among the cooked food was some tasty vegetable tempura.  What I thought was onion rings turned out to be tempura squid, but I was pleasantly surprised.  There were cubes of duck cooked in teriyaki sauce and later duck wings - sort of a Buffalo duck wings offering.  The duck was quite fatty and had gotten a little cold, but had a good flavor.  There were small dishes of rare beef slices on spicy bean sprouts.  There was a cold noodle dish with carrots and bean sprouts that I didn't have, but my non-sushi eating Gentleman enjoyed.  There were small skewers of beef and peppers, and crispy cooked fish (sprat perhaps?).  There was also a dish of peanuts and anchovies that I normally would have loved, but I passed it by because I would likely gross out my dining companion.  The was a big plate of pan fried shrimp in the shells, but by the time they came out I couldn't eat any more.  There were fried dumplings that were quite good, and green salad with ginger dressing for the less adventurous.  There was fried rice on the buffet, but if you want white rice, just ask.

The AYCE buffet had plenty of great food to eat, but the most hardened sushi addicts are likely to be disappointed.  The buffet included lots of maki, but few nigiri.  All we saw come out was one plate of salmon nigiri, which we whisked away to our hungry hoard.  There were, however, spicy tuna maki, futomaki (fat roll), kappa maki (cucumber), California maki (avocado, cucumber, crab), kampo maki (gourd), tempura shrimp maki, and a few others I didn't try.  Dan thought that the spicy tuna could have been more spicy.  I thought that some of the maki weren't rolled as nicely as they usually are, but they were still disappearing off the table at a fast pace.  There was a an excellent kaisu of seaweed, thin sliced cucumber, and crab.  Sliced, cooked salmon was served chilled and had a great buttery flavor.  There were large bowls of gari and wasabi to help yourself to.

Desserts included mochi balls rolled in toasted coconut and threaded on toothpicks, and a fruit salad of peaches, mandarin oranges, pineapple, and coconut custard that was good enough for two bowls worth for me.

Overall

Both sushi lovers and non-sushi eaters had a good meal.  For $12.95 you can stuff yourself silly.  I would recommend taking a small amount and going back frequently, as the maki were brought in small batches.  That way you'll get the best choices.  My one complaint: the cooked food could have been kept hotter while it sits on the buffet table.  A few things had already cooled down too much when we were first there at noon.  Beakman - our sushi loving, non-mammal, non-bird, eater - wasn't able to make it, but it seemed that there would be enough for him to eat between the salad, tempura, fish, and the maki.  True vegitarians will have limited choices, but still should be able to make a meal out of it.

Our thanks go to Karen for organizing a great weekend outing!

                                      Very truly yours,
                                      Ms. Margo