Meals Are Delightful

⭐⭐⭐

Japanese/Cafe / 📍 Shibuya

📓 Visits: 9+ 2019-2021

At 'Meals' two lunch options, both at JPY 1,850 incl.,  are offered that change on the 1st of each month.  The style of food is 'home-cooked' Japanese with each meal consisting of a main dish, soup and three side dishes followed by a (very small) dessert.  No English is spoken but the printed menu is in English and Japanese.

The dining room is pretty as a picture and reminiscent of an old-school English canteen.  Service is
friendly and efficient and the staff remember you if you're a regular.

Everything is cooked from scratch from fresh ingredients.  The quality of cooking here is much higher than in a usual teishoku Japanese restaurant.  In particular, deep fried or agemono items are greaseless, clear soup or dashi has good depth of flavour and is a world away from the instant clear soup served in cheaper restaurants, rice is takikomi gohan rather than just white rice.  Portions are not huge and the cost of meal is a little more than you'd pay for a Japanese lunch in most places but you're paying for quality and I've never left feeling hungry.

On one visit I went later in the day and ordered the pancake with rum butter.  It takes 30 mins to make and can only be ordered from 2:30.  If you order it at the same time as your lunch it can be ready to follow immediately.  It was more like a hot-out-of-oven cake than pancake - full of flavour and a real indulgence.  The small cube of rum-flavoured butter on the side didn't really add much for me - I would have been happy enough eating the cake on it's own, washed down with a cup of hot tea.

Meals is in the cool Kamiyama Dori area between Shibuya station and Yoyogi Park so there's plenty to do around there if you're crossing town.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1318/A131810/13218047/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 3.7

📱 Booking: 🟩 Bookings are accepted but if you arrive early on a weekday you don't need to book.  I've never been on a weekend but I expect it gets busy and you need to queue if you arrive at peak time and haven't made a reservation.

📍 Location:

2F 1-17-5 Tomigaya.  Shared street-facing entrance.  8 minutes from Yoyogi Koen or Yoyogi Hachiman stations.  The Keio 66 bus from the north and one of the Hachiko buses stop on Kamiyama Dori (which is one-way).  Get off at NHK if you're taking a bus from Shibuya station.

Map data ©2021 Google

💴 Damage: 1,850

⏱️ Time taken: 30-40m