Tokyo Diner: Soho, Thursday 6th January, 2011

The malady that many multicultural foodies in London commonly suffer from is that you can't get genuinely good Japanese food anywhere. There are exceptions: I personally enjoyed Ribon greatly and many seem to think Asakusa is as close to the real deal as you'll get in London. On price alone, they may have a point.

Chinatown is not necessarily known for its outstanding Japanese restaurants, but Tokyo Diner is standing strong as it approaches its twentieth anniversary next year. Richard Hills is the Englishman behind the venture which has brought a fairly consistent stream of success. Influenced by an extensive knowledge of Japanese people and culture, the inspiration behind the café is to recreate the sort of everyday typical restaurant one would find in Japan. Essentially, this place should have the same pull as Asakusa.

It doesn't, for a few reasons: it's not as charming, it's in Chinatown and it doesn't have the same feeling of authenticity as Asakusa. The only other factor is the food. A perfect test of this kind of restaurant should be an early evening cheap and cheerful lunch with a few friends. So here we go...

We tried a healthy sample of dishes, starting with a sashimi set of salmon,sea bream and sea bass (left). For 12 slices of raw fish, £10.60 is a bit toppy for a place that prides itself on being affordable, but they were rather fresh and refreshing. We also ordered a starter / side dish of chicken kara-agé which is chicken legs fried after being marinated in a soya-based sauce (right). You'd think they had been battered but the delicate balance they struck with the chicken made the skin crispy and the dish light enough to stay on the side.

Oyako don (or chicken with eggs and rice in a bowl) was fairly decent as a main course. The problem for me was that they'd pelted this with egg to the extent that it almost overwhelmed the chicken. Two of us had a tonkatsu bento box, which was fried and breadcrumbed pork cutlets with rice, pickles, sashimi and the typical seaweed-infested Japanese salad that, no matter how it is presented, always looks like the result of trawling a midlands canal. However, as with any good bento box, we were quickly mixing all parts of the assortment of food as quick as our hands and mouths would let us (left).

Finally, we sampled the chicken katsu curry, apparently the most popular dish on the menu (right). It was easy to see why: mild, enticing curry sauce with more or less meat 'n potatoes. Everyone should march out of Wagamama and proceed directly to Tokyo Diner to see what a more proper and earthy katsu curry tastes like. It's curry for the British who aren't obsessed with Indian food.

The issue that some people might take with Tokyo Diner is that it seems awfully try-hard, even patronising at times. They take it as their duty to explain the significance and popularity of each dish, even the styles of dishes, supplemented with extensive descriptions of what it is you're looking at. The haughty, know-all restaurant-goers amongst us may feel this is them blowing their own trumpet at just what a genuine experience they're giving us. We'll judge this for ourselves, thank you very much.

Not me though. This is the effort of somewhere that is so passionate and caring about what they do that they have taken it completely to heart. They are imploring the customer to not only enjoy their food but to embrace and immerse themselves in it and the cultural nuances of Japanese eating.

There is almost nothing to dislike about Tokyo Diner. They are open twelve hours a day all year long and apparently once turned over 550 covers in one day. I would wager that most of those people went home having had a lovely, bustling and lively meal which left them full, satisfied and not much lighter of pocket.

Possibly my favourite part of this place is their ethos on service and patronage. They insist you don't tip at the restaurant, apparently a nonexistent etiquette in Japan. All they ask for is that you recommend this place to your friends if you enjoyed it. Here's me doing my bit for them.

Tokyo Diner