Lunch at Midori Sushi Restaurant – the other attraction at Shibuya, Tokyo

During our recent trip to Tokyo, it seems that there are two major attractions in Shibuya, Tokyo. The first is of course the statue of Hachiko, the Akita dog which is fondly remembered for his loyalty to his master by continuing to wait for him at the Shibuya station everyday for many years after he passed away. The second, it seems is the Umegaoka Sushi No Midori Sohonten restaurant located at the Mark City East Building which is connected to Shibuya Station.  Both these attractions have long lines of people queuing up – the first to have their photo taken, the second to eat the raw fish selections.  We would love to write about both, but this being a food blog, we will restrain ourselves and just write about the food.

As you can see, Midori Sushi restaurant at Shibuya is a very popular place.  We had googled the place earlier to check its opening hours. It opens at 11 am. To beat the crowd that we expected, we arrived at 10.50, to be safe (so we thought). Unfortunately the other people were more prepared, By that time, there was already a long queue. The owners have thoughtfully installed an electronic number issuing machine to manage the crowd. Our number was 43.  If you are thinking of eating here, we suggest you take a queue number first then go visit Hachiko and come back. We returned after walking around the mall for 40 minutes and were seated around 11.45.

The restaurant is not large, with seating for approximately 15 people along the counter and another 20 at the tables. You can order the various sushi items a la carte, but we noticed that most of the tables ordered their set course meals and being in Shibuya, we did what the Shibuya folks did. We had the special sushi assortment and the special tuna sushi assortment (2,800 yen each) and also tried a cooked food item, the grilled scallops (600 yen each).

The scallops were really fresh and delicately cooked. In fact we think that their cooked food items (which are displayed on the wall and in Japanese only) are quite enticing and will be something we should try more of at the next visit.

The sushi sets were served on large wooden platters. Each sushi piece was of a generous size, almost double a regular sushi piece and the fish slices were very thick. The assortment of sushi was interesting as it contained a wide variety. The pieces that stood out were the oily tuna, the shrimp which was really large and sweet and the unagi sushi. For those who like tuna, then the tuna selection is really good value. It has pieces of regular tuna, chopped tuna, semi-oily and oily tuna sushi. The quality of the raw fish was good but not of the premium grade, which is understandable at these prices. If you have teenage children with bottomless appetites, this is a nice place to feed them good sushi with an authentic Japanese ambience without breaking the bank. We struggled to finish the last few pieces of sushi as they were really substantial pieces. With the benefit of hindsight, one sushi platter would suffice for two ordinary patrons, leaving some space to experiment with the cooked food items which you can order by pointing at the pictures on display on the wall.

All in all, we enjoyed our lunch at Midori Sushi. We would usually not want to wait more than 20 minutes for a meal, no matter how good. So it was good to have the ticket queuing system which was a time-saver as you can use the time to explore the area.

Umegaoka Sushi No Midori Sohonten Shibuya
1-12 Dogenzaka | Shibuya Mark City East 4F, Shibuya 150-0043
Tokyo