Tokyo 21

Stopped in with 2 friends for some drinks and dinner in July. Needless, to say I won’t be back. The outside seating area was nice, but the bugs were out of control.
My friends enjoyed their drinks. I had beer so nothing too exciting, but they did enjoy the sangria.
The food was less than desirable. We ordered the spring rolls which had no flavor and the rice paper was very gummy. We also had the spicy ramen and tonkotsu ramen both lacking flavor and spice. Finally we had the sliders, which were the highlight of the meal, but still nothing great. (chicken teriyaki w/​pineapple, Asian sloppy Joe, and fish & ginger).
If you eat here, go to the bathroom before you go. The bathrooms are like a sauna, sweltering jungle, hot box, whatever term you would like to choose. It’s July, no need for heat in the bathroom. Yikes!

Great local bar to grab a few sake’s and chat with the very friendly staff. The spicy ramen is outstanding but the real stand-​out for me is the Asian tacos. 3 different kinds and all absolutely delicious. Great place and a neighborhood gem.

went on a groupon. Food was pretty good. No stand outs.

Went with a large group (7), server was Dan and was extremely rude and acted like he was annoyed with us from the moment we got there. We spent a lot of money for bad service and not a lot of food. Won’t be coming back.

Came here with a groupon on a slower night. We weren’t that adventurous so we both tried noodles and I also had the fried egg slider and some spring rolls. The spring rolls were really hard to eat because they were huge and loosely packed so most of the innards fell out in my dipping sauce and I just ate them with a fork. The slider was tasty, but my pad see ew was just alright. I know it’s a boring choice, pad see ew, but in an upscale little place, it better be some awesomely unique pad see ew, and it wasn’t. My friend liked her ramen though.
The service was super annoying. Our waiter seemed bored enough to sit down with us and chat about nothing, which is fine, really, I’m always happy to meet new people, but he could have been interrupting a mini reunion of sorts and he wasn’t apologetic whatsoever. He kept saying how great the place was and how nice everyone was that worked there. Let us decide that for ourselves please and being over-​friendly and intrusive is not always «nice.» Plus, the worst of it was that he was a heavy smoker and you could smell it on him and his breath. So when he would sit down with us when we had food, I seriously almost gagged. So not cool. I don’t think waitstaff should be allowed to smoke inbetween food orders.

Not bad but not the best. My shitaki’s were a bit chard which I don’t like. I would go back to try something else.

Went here with a groupon.
The atmosphere was nice and the service was friendly.
I ordered a sake bomb, the shoyu ramen, and kalbi.
The kalbi was just once piece which was disappointing since it was $ 6 but it was very tasty and the best thing I ate all night.
The sake bomb was smaller than I expected but was still good.
The ramen seemed to be lacking a little bit. I had some ramens in NYC that looked about the same and had the same general ingredients but had so much more flavor to them.

This is a smaller sushi/​cocktail bar in the southern part of Old Town area. They have a nice selection of Tapas so you can get some plates of sushi, sliders, dumplings and other various dishes to share and munch on with a group of friends. Going off of another review I went with he Japanese Nachos and was not disappointed. It was served with a generous helping of the crab/​tuna mix and the fried wontons act as the «nacho chip» part of the plate. I also tried some edamame which was pretty standard. The scotch quail eggs were also a unexpected treat. It’s kinda hard to explain but it tasted like a specialty meatball with a mini egg in the middle. I had never really thought meatballs were missing anything but who knew, the truth of the matter is they need mini eggs in them! For drinks we had some sake and a couple beers. They do have a wide variety of sake bombs but they run from 5 $-100 $ so that looks like it’d be a pretty pricey evening if you got after those.
The service here was adequate. I honestly think that when we were in there they only had one guy working the front of the house and maybe just one chef. It was kind of a lazy saturday afternoon so we were pretty much the only people there.
One last thing, it looks like they have 1 $ tacos on Tuesdays so with a choice of beef/​fish/​chicken I’m looking forward to going back and trying those out.

Small, tucked away little place that had great tonkatsu ramen. I haven’t tried the sushi, but I liked the ambiance, the feel, and the fireplace, so I’d definitely go back!

I“m surprised Tokyo 21 isn’t packed more frequently. The food is delicious and inexpensive. I wanted everything on the menu but had to be practical. I ordered and I recommend: Kimchee Mandu (dumplings of pork, tofu and kimchee), Chinese sausage fried rice, and kalbi (Korean ribs).
I LOVE Japanese beers and they have 3 on tap — Sapporo, Kirin, and Asahi. When I was there, they had $ 3 Kirins. Lovely.
Why not 5 stars? The music was annoying hip-​hop and house which kind of killed the minimalist and clean-​cut atmosphere.

Went with my brother and we were both curious about the «japanese inspired pub food» — and by curious I mean scared.
The inside was newly renovated, a really nice bar/​medium size seating area. Our waitress was awesome! They seemed a little short staffed — she was the only waitress for the entire place, but everything still came out of the kitchen in good time.
We split a lot of little things, but the Japanese Nachos and the Tempura Ice Cream were absolutely delicious. I hate fish and really liked the nachos with crab and lobster.
They also have Sake Bomb specials every day, definitely a good deal!

This review is just for the bar, as we stopped by here for only some adult libations.
Walking around Old Town and passing some time prior to meeting some friends at Old Jerusalem for dinner, we were drawn into this place as it wasn’t packed and rowdy like some of the other places around and second they had a sake bomb special for $ 4.
BEST DECISION OF THE NIGHT! The bartender was awesome, very talkative and helpful and gave us a lot of great information about this spot. He told us the sake bomb special was a combination of Absolut Hibiscus, Sake, and Green Line beer. We ordered two and were FLOORED, what an amazing drink! To top it off they had about 15 different sake bombs with interesting combinations as the special we had. We had another few and were amazed at how tasty they were.
To let you know how much we enjoyed this spot, we convinced our dinner friends to come check this place out after our meal. We returned with aout 10 of our dinner friends and had an equally awesome experience with our group.
We will be back, next time our visit will include dinner as their food looked delicious!

This place is tiny and trending, like #teoing on twitter. It’s billed as an Asian fusion tapas place, with the usual smattering Korean, Chinese, and Thai cuisine.
The main selling point of this place is the price — nothing costs more than $ 10, and the portions are reasonable. We split three sliders, a tonkatsu ramen, and spicy tuna roll.
I wanted to like this place more, but alas, like getting a handjob when you’re expecting sex, it just fell short. Everything was pretty bland — the burgers were flat and the spicy tuna roll wasn’t spicy. Hit me with that MSG, yo

Picture this: 5 girls out for dinner, 2 hours before midnight on NYE. If you’re imagining a loud, crazy table full of rowdy, hyped up girls, you’d be right!
Our friend was the one who had made the reservation for us after searching for hours to find any place in the city that would take reservations for NYE and it was by fate that we ended up here: it was THE perfect way to kick off our night.
Tokyo 21 is small. We were lucky to squeeze 5 of us into the corner booth/​table and still have room for all the food we ordered! So we started off the night right: a bottle of champagne… and then another… and then, well, you know how that goes.
We all ordered our own thing and a few things to share, like the shrimp fried rice, sweet potato fries and so on. I ordered the Philly roll which was super fresh and way delicious! My other friend ordered the tacos which she liked a lot and one friend even ordered coffee!
As some point our table was literally covered in food we were devouring, and filled with champagne flutes, NYE party hats and noise makers. We were «that table», if you know what I mean…
Our waitress was SPOT ON! In fact, all of the staff there were incredible. They were accommodating (even letting my friend charge her phone while we dined) and the best part of the whole night? They started playing old school 90s songs (think Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and even some Alicia Keys). The music was an out-​of-​this-​world incredible addition to our night.
Our table was cleared quickly, the waitress took our picture, we laughed a lot, sang out loud and had a blast. Add to our excitement that this joint had maybe one or two other couples in the whole place and it was like our own personal retreat pre-​midnight.
I would come back to dine and enjoy in a heartbeat! Thank you to Tokyo 21 for making our NYE so special!

Japanese Nachos & Tacos!!! Delicious and fun. Great concept!
Delicious! I am not in love with the décor here… which is why I want to give it a 4 star…
But, I had some of the food for carry out, and it was great! And the staff was very accommodating and nice… so 5 stars it is!
I’m a sucker for great service. They took our order early at 2:30 and had it ready by 3 pm so that we could take away. Really great of them…
The Japanese nachos were delicious… We also had the sweet potato fries, and it was all great. We had a tuna, avocado and mango dish that was delicious too.
We also has the Taco Tuesday Tacos! for a $ 1! My favorite was the beef taco…
They have different specials on different days… excellent alternative to Benchmark. So much more authentic!

Yep, I am a fan! Small plates of Asian food, what is not like, especially when it is reasonably priced (seems like everything was under $ 6) and not being «shot» drinkers, we opted for a bottle of wine which was also reasonably priced.
We were a group of 6, so we got to try a bunch of different items: kimchi mandu (pork dumplings), the lettuce wraps (daeji bulgogi) was done just right, and the «its not beef and broccoli» was an interesting creation of brussel sprouts and mushrooms in a lovely brown sauce. I thought the pad see ew was good, and like any self respecting Asian restaurant, large enough to share (something that many small plates restaurants tend to forget about in communal type dishes).
We didn’t have any of their signature sliders or tacos, I’m not sure how that happened, but since I’ll be back, we’ll leave that for another visit.

Good place with small portions if you want to try a little bit of everything. Reasonably priced as well.
Gyoza dumplings– good but a little oily
Bacon Crab Rangoon– favorite thing! Very good
Miso Soup– good but generic
Pad see ew– salty, I found it edible but my boyfriend couldn’t eat it because it was too salty
Spicy Tuna Roll– very good and big, but the seaweed wrapper was a little hard
They messed up our order and it took a while, but they were really nice and took it off our bill and more. Really attentive, so A+ for service. Overall the food was so-​so but if I had another groupon I’d go again!

Subdued and cozy, calm oasis in the vibrant activity of the Old Town strip. Spacious seating, relative to other establishments, quiet patio in the back complete with bubbling fountain in the corner. Portions are small, but so is the price tag.
Nice sweet and salty take on the Edamame, and the Bacon Crab Rangoon is melt-​in-​your-​mouth good.
Limited wine list, interesting drinks, beer on tap.

They were out of a lot of things when I ate here this previuos Saturday. Pork in general, along with 2 out of the 3 wines I ordered. Our server was nice, but rather unkempt and smelled. Won’t be back.

I am in LOVE with this place. This used to be the old Kamehachi, but I do enjoy this new atmosphere. This is a good place if you want to try a bit of everything. Also if you love sharing, this is the place !
Fascinating dishes I would have to commemorate would be the Crab Rangoon. I normally don’t fancy crème cheese in my food, but what Toyko 21 does is put bacon. The saltiness of the bacon along with the crème cheese make an amazing duo.
I would definitely want to try everything on the menu.
Things I had last night:
Kimchi Mandu
Spicy Ramen
Shoryu Ramen
Kalbi
Pork Sandwiches (?)
Sweet Potato Fries
Vietnamese Salad
Chicken Wings
and maybe more …