There’s a lot to like about Tokyo Eat’s interior. Its high-ceilinged dining room, with UFO-like lights, large formica tables and sixties style plastic chairs is the kind of place you can imagine whiling away the hours with a group of friends. It’s one of the trendier Parisian dining spaces – at least, among those you don’t need to book for three months in advance. But unfortunately, that’s all it deserves a recommendation for.
The menu is divided into ‘before everything,’ ‘before,’ ‘during,’ ‘after’ and ‘after everything’. Twee, but overwhelming – particularly when each section lists around ten items. Raw salmon, boiled new potatoes and a pot of overly sweetened gravlax sauce didn’t match the €21 price tag, while wok-fried noodles (an example of their ‘Japanese influences) were borderline inedible. Rubbery whole prawns, dry morsels of chicken and greasy noodles came in at an eye-watering €23. You could probably find better dishes at an all-day Chinese buffet. We sought solace in the desserts – and kudos to the waitress for admitting that ‘1st class mango’ was simply a fresh mango flown long-distance so that ‘rich parents could feed their kids a portion of fruit’. A bargain at €13 too. We had to leave the tasteless salted caramel ice cream to melt, but an indulgent Speculoos milkshake (we were desperate by this point), layered thickly with fresh cream, almost numbed the pain.
Still, service could not be faulted and the wine list is reasonably priced, with the best value glass of red at €4. With such a unique dining room, the eats at Tokyo Eat deserve to be a thousand times better – a more concise menu and higher quality ingredients would be a good place to start. Otherwise it’s just daylight robbery.