Tasty lunch if you are patient: Restaurant Sala of Tokyo (25. May 2016)

The Sala of Tokyo has been recommended to me a couple of times but so far I never managed to actually go there. However, finally it was the time to pay the restaurant a visit. The entrance to the restaurant doesn’t really jump your eyes as it s advertised very decently. Once you enter, you figure the place is not very big so it is highly recommended to book your table in advance.

I decided to go for the “Yakitori Lunch” (CHF 39.00). There is a large selection of different dishes on the menu which all look great – but frankly, besides the lunch menus everything is quite pricey – even for Zurich standards.

However, with the Yakitori lunch you score a good deal. At first you are served a small “selection of starters” with pickled sweet potatoes, salmon in miso sauce, and asparagus.

I recently read that the miso soup is in fact supposed to be taken after the main meal and not before. However, even here the miso soup is served before the actual main course. I must admit I never quite grasped the concept of miso – in the sense, it is just nothing special to me. Same here.

What confused me quite a bit was the timing of what was served when. So, my company ordered something different than I did. And while I was getting my pieces of the lunch (without much explanation) quite rapidly, she basically had to wait until almost the end until she finally got served something. Maybe that is a Japanese conceptual thing but frankly speaking I think it is quite weird to have two people eat together and serve it in a way that one would almost be finished eating while the other didn’t have a bite yet.

However, the menu continued and I got a “small salad”, “rice”, and “pickled vegetables”. In addition to the lunch, I had ordered a “6 pieces sashimi assortment” (CHF 9.00) which was definitely worth ordering as the fatty sashimi was mouth-watering.

As a part of the menu, “chicken Yakitori skewers” were served. They are average, nothing special, but often meat on skewers is really bad so it was a positive surprise as it was good.

Overall, for CHF 39.00 you definitely get a good lunch menu with overall tasty elements. However, I was personally not really blown away by the dishes. When it comes to the service (respectively the chefs) I can only hope and assume that they had just forgotten about the second person’s dish and only realized while serving as else, if this is intentional, then it really is a bad concept. The atmosphere is authentic and very lovely. And the service is polite and very attentive.

To sum it up: Fair dishes for a fair price if you go with the lunch menu, an authentic atmosphere, and polite service but you have to be ready to wait quite a bit. Besides that, make sure you book a table way in advance as it is difficult to score one on a last minute basis.

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Contact Details:

Restaurant Sala of Tokyo

Limmatstrasse 29

8005 Zürich (CH)

Tel.: +41 44 271 52 90

E-Mail: info@sala-of-tokyo.ch

Homepage: http://sala-of-tokyo.ch

About the Author: Sven

I started the blog in October 2009, while living in Milan which I definitely consider to be one of the food capitals of the world. I was in touch with food since my early childhood (as my father is a former chef). Whenever I can, I travel the world to discover new places, to meet people but mostly to try local dishes and to find hidden gems! If you know a place worth going, please drop a line to: info@thediningexperience.org. Currently, I am a member of the following food-related associations: Chevalier @Chaîne des Rôtisseurs Zurich-Ville; Membre Gourmet Dégustateur @Ordre Mondial des Gourmets Dégustateurs [OMGD]; Gesellschafter @Goldener Fisch and Member @Slowfood Convivium Zurich City.