Hi Kavey,

Have you been to Sukiyabashi Jiro, the subject of the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiro_Dreams_of_Sushi

Do you think it's worth the hype? We will be in Tokyo for three nights for my husband's work and will probably only have one free night for dinner.

I crossed it off my list when I found out it's $300 per person for a 15-20 minute 20 piece meal. My Minnesota Midwestern upbringing simply won't let me do it. Not saying I didn't think about it though. Just not for very long.

Haha. Seems to be $286 pp for 40 minutes, which doesn't seem quite as extreme...We're from LA/NYC so doesn't seem as outrageous to us, especially because we'll be on an expense account and it's supposedly a once in a lifetime event for sushi lovers. But we're wondering if Jiro's (now age 88) should be our destination for our one night out on our own. Has anyone been? Worth the hype?

Crosscheck, nope, didn't go to any of the multi-hundred dollar places. I know a few friends who've been to some of the top places and had wonderful experiences, but I decided our meal splurges would be kaiseki ryori in the few ryokan we booked. For the rest of our eating, we mostly went for ordinary places.

I'd probably not make a decision until I knew what kind of restaurants you'd be visiting the other two nights, but of course if you want to visit one of these top places, you'd need the advance reservation I guess.

This is an article from 2012 that I had happened upon this morning right before I saw your query. Could be out of date or just inaccurate. http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cul.../perfect-sushi

Thanks, ceezee. Somehow, although I'm a long time New Yorker subscriber, I somehow missed that piece. I did see the film, which made me interested in the restaurant, but the anti-feminist angle is troublesome. If you look at recent tripadvisor reviews, people say dinner lasted 40 minutes. And 30,000 yen is now worth $273 - a bargain!

Looking forward to your report. Lots of pressure choosing just one restaurant for our upcoming trip. The last time I was in Tokyo (in 2007) we went to Seryna for our splurge, then highly rated for shabu shabu. Now reviews say it's old fashioned. Also went to Gonpachi, which became touristy after being featured in Kill Bill (also opened in Beverly Hills). Somehow I got into Sushi Dai at the Fish Market without waiting for hours...to dai for. We also ate at two of the ramen places in this slide show, Nagi (incredible) and the ramen stand in the Fish Market.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/201..._index-10.html

This thread is the best! I'm still researching my trip and was not even close to food, but this thread got me started on research. Was reading the NY Times and came across this Ramen blog. I thought it was a great lesson and resource for all things Ramen in Tokyo. Enjoy!

http://www.ramenadventures.com/p/tokyo-ramen-map.html.

It was crosscheck's link that got me started! And Kavey, your blog and links are awesome too! Thank you!

Thank you, very kind. I love sharing food and travel experiences! It's my other hobby (besides travel).

Just took a look at your blog. Those sweet potato dumplings looks amazing.

Crosscheck, no fair to make me think of those. It's just coming up to 7 am in the morning and now I want sweet potato dumplings!

Just starting to research a possible trip to Japan. We normally would not consider pre-reserving restaurants for a trip. We tend not to seek out extremely high-end places, prefer local places, so maybe that's why. Is there some reason in general why you should do this in Japan? Love Japanese food of various kinds, and would look forward to trying almost anything, excepting horse sashimi!

WWanderer, see my reply above, my husband and I didn't reserve restaurants before we left.

Rarely, we'd reserve when we got there -- on our last trip I was looking up restaurants for Osaka and found one I liked the look of, we meandered over during the late morning, popped our heads in and reserved for that evening. Just as well, as it was tiny and we realised during our meal that anyone without reservations was being turned away.

Our friends that we met in Kumamoto also made reservations a few days ahead for the horse specialist restaurant we went to with them there, though we could probably have risked making them on arrival to be honest.

But we didn't reserve any of the famous pricy ones in Tokyo or Kyoto...

Interesting thread!

Tentatively planning return trip to Japan, one that will have lots of focus on food...so setting this aside to read all links and ponder!!