Yachiyo Japanese Restaurant at Tokyo Kaikan : Kaiseki Lunch

Yachiyo Japanese restaurant is one of several restaurants at Tokyo Kaikan in Tokyo, Japan. This is large hospitality complex offering restaurants, banquet halls, and wedding facilities. Basically a venue for dining and celebrations, which seemed like an appropriate place to start our recent visit to Tokyo.

Japanese Restaurant at Tokyo Kaikan

There are a number of restaurants at Tokyo Kaikan, which is situated near the Imperial Palace. Other dining options at the venue include one Michelin star French restaurant Prunier, Rossini Roast Beef and Grill and Kai Teppanyaki Restaurant.

This is the description of the restaurant on its website: “Yachiyo Japanese restaurant is designed around a traditional irori hearth. Tokyo Kaikan’s take on Japanese harmony offers an elegant setting for a special occasion.” It certainly has an elegant and formal atmosphere. Waitresses were dressed in kimono and were calm and soft-spoken. There is a small open dining hall. Many celebratory meals took place in private rooms.

Yachiyo Japanese Restaurant Menu

There are a number of menus available for both lunch and dinner. The lunch menus tend to be more affordable. We made an online reservation and selected the Yachiyo Kaiseki Menu (Yen 11,000). The course meal has a range of dishes typical of a kaiseki meal: seasonal dishes, sashimi, grilled dishes, deep-fried dishes, simmered dishes, rice, Japanese sweets. This is a picture of the Yachiyo menu with English translation.

No kaiseki meal in Japan will be complete without some sake. On this occasion we selected a Dassai 45 Sparking sake.

Appetisers and Soup

The beauty of Japanese cuisine was obvious as soon as the first dish rolled out. The appetisers were delicate and delicious. You can view the detailed description of ingredients in the menu above.

Yachiyo Japanese Restaurant Kaiseki Menu

The clear soup was outstanding. So much flavour in a simple looking soup. Duck meatballs seem like an unusual item but there was hardly any obvious duck flavour. Everything was seamless.

Yachiyo Japanese Restaurant Lunch: Raw, Grilled and Steamed Seafood

As this kaiseki course was a mid-level priced meal, there was no expensive ingredients like premium tuna cuts or sea urchin. But the sashimi items and grilled bream was top-notch. The translucency was beautiful.

Next was steamed crab, taro and mushrooms – nicely presented and tasty.

Tempura, Rice and Dessert

Sadly, when the heavy dishes started arriving, it signalled the end of the meal was near. The tempura was a simple combination of prawn and fish. Wonderful texture and freshness.

Rice, pickles and miso soup to ensure no one leaves the restaurant hungry.

A simple dessert of fresh fruits and green tea to end the meal. The fruits (persimmon and grapes) were quite ordinary, not the super sweet kind that we were anticipating. This was the weakest course of the meal. Other than that everything was very good. At current exchange rates, this Yachiyo Japanese Restaurant kaiseki lunch (w/o drinks) costs around S$100.