Tokyo Café

Specialty: Western food cooked Japanese style
Location: Ground floor (main mall), south wing, Mall Of Asia
Service charge: none
Rating: ★★★

Tokyo Café serves western food cooked Japanese style. I don't particularly see how western food cooked Japanese style would appeal to Asian people (except the Japanese). We like our western food, western style and our Eastern food, Eastern. I would figure that only Japanese people that miss Japan like this particular style of cooking. I could be wrong though, given the number of people dining there.

The Menu
The menu consists mostly of burgers and crepes typical of those found in western themed restaurants in Tokyo. Most of the diners order the pasta or the burger patties. A few have chosen tempura.

As for me, I have decided on ordering one, usually expensive Japanese dish and one oddly named, Japanese carbonara. I haven't tasted Japanese carbonara before nor have I seen one in japan and I've been on a few trips there already.

Iced Lemon Tea
Price: php 60
Rating: ★★★
The iced lemon tea was similar to those served in Tokyo with the sugar syrup separated from the tea. You get to decide how much sugar you put in there. Its not so sweet without the sugar and it actually tastes like hot lemon tea, only its cold.

Hot Green Tea
Price: php 90
Rating: ★★★
The hot tea is served in fine delicate china. It's a little out of place since the place is more casual than formal. The green tea has a crisp clean green tea taste.





Unaju
Price: php 243
Rating: ★★
Grilled Japanese eel. Out of season, it's usually quite expensive. it's been a while since I've eaten one and I'm curious about the appearance of this very Japanese dish in a western themed place so I decided to take it. In the end, the taste wasn't so special and there were a few places where there was still bone on the fish. It wasn't bad. But it wasn't special either. I don't recommend it unless you have a real craving for this dish like I did at the time. Too expensive and too plain.






Japanese Carbonara
Price: php 175
Rating: ★★★★
Curious dish, this one. Its different from what we pinoys are used to. Carbonara with a hint of soy sauce. There is absolutely no presence of bacon or any other meat products in this dish. Finally, it's topped with nori or Japanese seaweed. The taste is OK despite being different but the oil does tend to settle at the bottom making the last few noodles more oily than the previous mouthfuls.

Conclusion
An odd place. The place could possibly hold around 30 - 35 people and seating easier if you come in small groups. A good place if you want to try something new or if you want to know what it's like to be in western restaurant in Tokyo. A good place to reminisce and tell stories if you've already been there. The ambiance is occasionally shattered by oddly spoken, wrongly pronounced Japanese phrases though. It's quite annoying if you hear spoken Japanese regularly. It's not really their fault if they weren't taught by a Japanese teacher, but they could try to remove the heavy gay accent when speaking the language (there are quite a few of them in there, and they are by far, the loudest). As for the food, good enough but not spectacular. I might try another dish sometime, but they better fix that accent before that time comes.