Rengatei sits quietly on gas-lit Ginza-dori, and has served traditional fare since 1895. At lunchtime, the place is packed with customers spilling out on to the street. Rengatei means 'brick restaurant', which shows you just how remarkable the brown brick building was at the time.
Rengatei is one of the oldest still-operating Western-style restaurants in Japan. It has helped to define classic yoshoku (Japanified Western food) dishes like pork cutlets and hayashi rice (beef in demi glace sauce with rice).
But the restaurant is most famous as the possible bithplace of omurice (fried rice wrapped in an egg omlette). Rengatei's original recipe omurice is a bit different, though – here, the beaten eggs are mixed into the rice and then all fried together.