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57th St-7th Ave (N, Q, R, W)
7th Ave-53rd St (B, D, E)
59th St-Columbus Circle (1, A, C, B, D)
"The sushi was excellent. The fish was fresh and flavorful. The different varieties of ahi, aku, salmon, and eel was exceptional. Every…" read more »
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Great lunch menu. I have been going there a lot. Sometimes the grilling can be a little slow and thus it takes a while to get the food. But all in all, good lunch place in midtown. I need to try their dinner one of these days.
BTW, anyone knows what happened to the guy that used to grill during lunch hours???
FYI, if you're a weakling like my friend and I were, then it might seem like the 2nd floor entrance is locked--it's not, you just have to pull REALLY damn hard on it. Or just sketchily follow behind another person in, like I did :)
But anyway, on to the review: I loved it! It's chicken skewer heaven. We ordered four skewers:
1. Chicken hearts
2. Enoki wrapped in bacon
3. Pork belly
4. Chicken thigh and scallion
All were delicious--flavorful, juicy, and tender. We also ordered the negi tori don (chicken, rice, and liquidy egg) and dashi maki tamago (an omelet type dish). Both were wonderful, but be warned that a lot of items on the menu can taste similar (the chicken thigh and scallion skewer was essentially the same thing as the chicken in the negi tori don). We closed things off with delicious mochi ice-cream.
The place was jam packed and had a pretty awesome atmosphere to it. Price wasn't too bad for Japanese food. There were some more exotic items on the menu that I would have loved to try. Like the sea cucumber salad. I would highly recommend this place and I plan on going back.
amazing items:
--steak
--the asparagus wrapped in bacon
service was sketchy--they were slow; forgot a couple of our items, and charged us for them :) i corrected it w no problem.
have to spend at least $20
however for someone from out of town looking for something non-commercial, this place definitely satisfied and pleased me.
This cute, little establishment is unassuming out front, tucked upstairs and right next to Sugiyama.
The yakitori was all pretty solid. We picked up an array of meats and seafood to try, but the stars of the night were their homemade tofu and the chicken hearts skewer, both of which we ordered a second round of.
First off, I have to say that I generally do not tend towards organ meat. Tripe, hearts, liver, intestine, etc. tend to have either a strange aftertaste (or during-taste for that matter) or a weird texture that I don't like. So when I say that the chicken hearts at Totto are *fantastic*, that's saying something people. You heard it from me first, here on Yelp.
Anyway, about the tofu. It's homemade, so it has a fresh and clean taste to it that you can't find out of a box. Served with an assortment of toppings like bonito flakes, sesame seeds, and chives, it's really one thing on the menu that should end up on your table, on your plate, and in your mouth. Yum.
Good, but I'm not sure it warrants all these 5 star reviews.
I give it 5 stars for service and 3.5 stars for food.
Yakitori Totto is located on the 2nd floor and the walk up is a little skeevy at first since you're not sure what you're getting yourself into. However, upon opening the door, you are greeted with the delicious yakitori smells of any little izakaya in Shibuya.
Our party of 3 arrived around 7ish on a Saturday night. She told us there was around a half an hour wait, and took my name and number down and told me they would call me.
We strolled around the Times Square area and true to her word, we were seated at a table within 30-40 minutes. She called me twice -- once to tell me that a table was freeing up and the second time to tell me that the table would be ready in 5 minutes.
The menu is a bit sparse. Definitely not as many items as Oh Taisho in St Marks.
We ordered (** denotes must order!):
Daiginjyo Tofu $8 -- soft tofu cooked in a small hotpot at your table
Gyoza $7 -- 6 fried pork dumplings
Tako No Kara $7 -- deep-fried octopus, a la fried calimari style
**Fuwa-Fuwa Hanpen $7 -- deep fried soft fish cake dish. REALLY GOOD, a must have.
**Zidori Donabe Gohan $12 -- rice and chicken cooked in earthenware pot at your table
Kawa (skin), Momo (thigh), **Kobe Beef Gyutan (kobe beef tongue), Kuruma Ebi (prawn/shrimp), **scallops, steak skewers
For 3 people, our bill came out to around $150. In my opinion, quite expensive for yakitori but then again you are paying for the location and the service, which was excellent.
How does this place get a 4.5 star rating?
I have plenty of regular yakitori choices in LA, all of which are highly rated. Shin Sen Gumi, Torimatsu, Honda Ya, etc. I just ate at Honda Ya the very next night back home in LA simply to verify my taste calibration.
Everything lacked flavor, and the meat quality was poor (texture, appearance, size) I found a small hair on one of my meat skewers. A gnat was buzzing around the table. Don't bother walking up the flight of stairs to this place.
When you're in LA, now you have some recommendations.
Yakitori Totto is def where to go for an upscale, authentic Japanese izakaya experience. No reservations so you'll have to wait but there's a pub across the street, so just leave your name and numb w/the hostess and then get your drink on while you wait for yakitori (and other excellent Japanese) goodness.
Their fresh tofu is amazing. The sake selection is fab. All of the yakitori options are perfect. The decor is very intimate and reminiscent of a tiny Japanese joint you'd stumble upon on the side streets of Tokyo.
Every time I go to Japan, I have to have some yakitori. I was quite happy when Totto opened a few years ago. I went with my mother and cousin and it didn't disappoint. I love the nankotsu (cartilage) which many people don't like. It's an acquired taste, but it is great with beer or a chu-hai. My favorite part of the chicken is the skin. Yes I know it's bad for you, but that's why it's so good. Their homemade tofu is great as well. I would stay away from the dessert as they are mediocre.
Yakitori like in Tokyo!!!
This place seriously never disappoints. This time instead of ordering EVERY SINGLE grilled item on the menu I stuck with my favorites, Meatball, kobe tongue, and a few others butttt this time the BEST dish was a rice bowl, negitori
IT WAS SIMPLY AMAZING! i devoured it in under 5 seconds. DELICIOUS.
we also got the tori dango and kyona to jyako which was also equally as amazing.
man i think i could eat here every single day! Their new lunch menu also looks AMAZING! I went on a friday evening at 7pm and NO LINE!! NO WAIT!! WOWWWWWWWWWWWW
yum yum
This place speaks for it self. Its reputation and popularity is irrefutable. The menu seems…
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They are open for lunch now!!! For $9.50, you can get yakitori over rice (served with an egg), miso soup, and salad. AWESOME. This is my new "escape from the office" lunch spot, because you can sit down, enjoy really good food at a good price, in a relaxing atmosphere, all in midtown. I ordered the chicken thigh yakitori and it was succulent. It was cooked perfectly.
I sat at the bar and was served very attentively by the woman who greeted me at the door. If you're by yourself, you can get in and out in 30 minutes, but I think it would also be great for a proper hours lunch with a couple of co-workers.
I almost didn't write this review as I don't want it to get too busy here during lunchtime.
I don't know why they are proud of themselves....
Taste is not that special, and amount of each foods is a little bit....
And I don't know Maybe I had a bad luck but, the they are so rude... I didn't feel any motivation from them to take care of us.
So, I didn't pay a lot of tip for them, but when we left, they asked us to pay more... I wanna pay tip, when I am satisfied.
So, anyway, to me Totto is suck!!!!
Meat on a stick. So easy a caveman could do it... but he cannot make it taste this mouthwatering. Yakitori Totto was recommended to me by several friends. I was a skeptic. You charge an obscene amount of money for a few small pieces of meat skewered on a stick. I've had shish kebabs before.
My party arrived at 5:15pm on Friday (Dinner begins at 5:30). It was a genius idea because a line sprouted behind us one minute later. Yakitori Totto is pretty much booked from 7pm onwards.
My group and I ordered a slew of different meats. Our favorites were the Pork Belly, Skirt Steak, and Chicken w/ Peppers. All the meats were savory and flavorful. We stayed away from the funkier dishes such as chicken gizzards. We also had the fried tofu, the mochi, and dessert parfait. We devoured them like savages.
The service was 5 stars as well. Our waiter gave us the perfect attentiveness we needed but was not overbearing. He was knowledgeable about the menu and took time to answer our questions. The restaurant is easy to miss. It is on the second floor of a narrow building. The atmosphere is typical to that of sushi restaurant.
I love love love ANYTHING on a stick. And when it's liver, even better! I'll have two sticks please.
The Yakitori here is divine, as good as that in Japan. You even leave with that lovely grilled meat smell saturated in your hair and clothes. Classic.
We had a couple of the following: negima chicken (thighs) , reba (liver--sigh...), teba (wings), mune (breast), asparagus bacon-- and a few more that were all delicious. They come out as they are cooked so you don't feel like a heifer eating 10 skewers of meat all at once-- although the kawa chicken skin did leave me with an artery clogging feeling.
And might I mention that the gyoza is must order. It's like a flavor eruption in your mouth.
Make reservations or wait an hour... its that good.
Hands down one of my favorite places in NY to eat. everything is authentic and delicious.
Friend was moving away from NY and this was the farewell dinner:
Raw octopus marinated in wasabi
Sticky Yam with Shizo
Deep Fried Octopus
Deep Fried Rice balls with cheese in the middle.
Tofu soup with Vermicelli
Tuna and Avocado Salad
Every piece of Yakitori was awesome. The chicken meatball with shizo and without are awesome.
I will go back as soon as I can.
Not gettin any ass? Come here and get some tail. It's arguably better.
(Regrettably their kawa--chicken skin--isn't nearly as tasty)
Very good meal. We had no clue what to order so had the waitress select a variety for us and she did a great job, without taking adv of the open ticket to bring as much as she wanted, so def recommend doing that. We had a bottle of unfiltered sake with the meal which went well with the variety of meats. Not really necessary to leave room for dessert if you wanted to try more yakitori Would def go back.
I thought the epicenter of Yakitori in NYC was in Saint Marks . . . boy was I wrong. Yakitori Totto in the heart of midtown surpasses all of the Yakitori spots I have tried in the NYC metropolitan area (NJ, Brooklyn and Manhattan) When you step upstairs, you are greeted by a friendly hostress who told me on a Tuesday night that there is an hour wait.... on a Tuesday night?? No worries . . i'll just grab a beer some place with my friend and kill sometime and i'm telling you that this place is worth it. When you see the majority of the clientele is Japanese, that itself sold me as probably the best Yakitori places outside of Japan. Prices are a bit more, but the quality within itself sets it apart and i'm coming here again and again and again........
I've lived in Osaka and Tokyo for a few years, so my taste for Japanese food has been very discerning when it comes to Japanese food in the US. The atmosphere and service are top notch, and the food is pretty delicious! Some better than others, especially the ika goro which is probably one of the tastiest things I've ever eaten before. I had to order it twice, and almost ordered it a 3rd time. ;) The Sapporo draft beer was very creamy as well, which is something I really missed about drinking beer in Japan.
Will definitely be coming back here again.
You can typically find yourself waiting for a table in this small 2nd level restaurant that holds 7-10 tables, a private room, and the bar area seating ~8 people. Our party of 3 came around 10:30 pm on a Saturday evening. Luckily we were able to snatch a seat by the bar, which we didn't mind since we'd be able to watch the 2 chefs prep and grill all the skewered goodness.
We sampled quite a few things, most of which I cannot remember, but I will try to comment on the one's that I do:
- Negima Chicken ($3) - chicken thigh and scallion done right, moist and tender and good grill flavor
- Kawa ($3) - chicken skin which tasted more like fat than anything else. I was hoping for this to be slightly grilled and crisp on the outside, but all it felt like I was eating was pieces of fat.
- Mune ($3) - chicken breast with wasabi and salt. The chicken breast was pretty dry and tough to chew, though the mild wasabi and salt helped to down this a little bit. Definitely a dish I would not order again.
- Kuro buta negi pon ($3.50) - Berkshire pork belly with scallion and ponzu. Tender pork belly grilled to perfection. Not crisp like you would expect as compared to how other cultures prepare pork belly, but the scallion did help to add a nice crunch to this skewer.
- Asparagus bacon ($4) - asparagus wrapped in a slice of bacon. Such a simple skewer but so delicious. The asparagus had a nice crunch, and the bacon added some yummy fatty salty flavors.. On my list to get again.
- Gyoza ($8) - 6 homemade pork dumplings. Absolutely divine!!! These dumplings were juicy and had tons of flavor. The side of sesame sauce complimented the gyoza perfectly. All I could think of was how I wanted to order 2 dozen more of these top-notch dumplings.
- Yaki Miso Tofu ($3) - deep-fried tofu topped with yuzu flavored miso. The tofu was firm with a nice crispness to the outside. Being that it was fried, the tofu did not feel greasy, it almost felt as if I were eating healthy fried foods.
- Enoki Bacon ($4) - enoki mushroom wrapped in a slice of bacon. I'm a big fan of enoki mushrooms, small string-like mushrooms that were soft and buttery with the perfect saltiness from the bacon.
- Skirt Steak - I can't quite remember how the skirt steak was prepared, but I highly advise trying it out. The steak was very tender and moist with great flavor from the marinade.
- Green Tea Ice Cream ($4.50?) - OMG. Can green tea ice cream be this delicious? I don't know if it was just refreshing after all that grilled goodness, but the ice cream was creamy and was the perfect balance, neither bitter nor too bland as I typically find at many other restaurants. Thumbs up on ending this delicious meal with a great dessert!!
There were several other skewers that we ordered but not very memorable, or my memory is just darn bad. One thing to note was that the skewers were brought out one at a time, rather than all at once, ensuring that we would be eating the food hot off the grill. Service was decent with bringing the food out to us, but we did find ourselves having to get their attention for drink refills, which could sometimes take 2-3 minutes before one of them noticed us.
If you've never had yakitori before, this restaurant is the perfect first experience. I hope that your visit was as enjoyable as mine. I am looking forward to coming back to this place again and try their other skewers, and another order of the gyoza and green tea ice cream. Yum!!
For some reason, I have never been to Totto until recently. And I'm a huge fan now!
Be prepared to wait for a while (we waited 45-60 minutes for a table for five), but it's worth the wait. This is an upscale version of the Yakitori Taisho. The food is delicious and service is superb. All of the skewers are yummy - although our favorite is the chicken that you dip in the raw egg. I will eat anything off their menu. Also, they have delicious desserts.
Totto has a minimum of $20 per person dining, and they only split the bill up to three credit cards. They do not take reservations after 7pm.
I love Yakitori!
Great selection, we had:
Ikura Syoyu Zuke salmon roe marinated in soy sauce
Edamame steamed green soybeans with sea salt
Jidori Karaage japanese style fried organic chicken
Dashi Maki Tamago japanese soft rolled omelette
Asparagus Bacon asparagus wrapped in a slice of bacon
Kobe Beef Gyutan kobe beef tongue
Cold Noodles
Pretty much anything you try comes out right away so it's hot to order, and so easy to nibble on.
The service is friendly and I've never had a problem getting a seat.
Recommended :)
I had heard of this place on yelp so last time I was in Ny we came here for an early dinner. Luckily that we got there a little early because there was a very long wait after us. We sat right in front of the bar area where they were cooking the yakitori. The service was very good and the food come one after the other and that was perfect. I would suggest that you try the SHISHITOU TSUKUNE, ENOKI BACON, KURUMA EBI, HARAMI,
YAKI NASU, ERINGI, ASPARA, SHIITAKE. I wasn't a big fan of the TOTTO'S TOKUSEI YAKI ONIGIRI with soy sauce or any of the yakitori with the plum sauce. If you still have room after that I would recommend the dessert. My favorite is the green tea ice cream.
Yakitori Totto recently opened up its doors for lunch, and their lunch menu is fantastic--an emphasis on donburi and Japanese kebabs, with a delicate miso soup, salad with crack dressing (seriously, I have never tasted salad dressing so good), and some palate-cleansing barley tea, all for $10. The restaurant was strangely empty during lunch, but I can't imagine it'll stay that way for long.
Totto is as good as the Yakitori Torys on the east side. Except for some reason their reservations fill up really quick. If you don't have one make sure you're in line in the stairwell by 5:15pm and you can probably still get a seat before a show. If not it's right next to "East", where you can get sushi as an alternative.
I have not found any of their dishes to be anything less than spectacular, and their sake list is long and distinguished as well. Enjoy!
I am more vegetarian than not (by far) and even still I've been here twice.
If you don't eat meat at all, don't come here. They have nothing for you except some overpriced asparagus or mushrooms on sticks.
On the pro side, the chicken is quite tasty. Also the place has a great, slightly smoky atmosphere. I like to sit at the bar and watch the food get made. I love, love, love, eating grilled chicken cartilage, it turns out.
But... it does seem overpriced. This is especially obvious when they want you to pay more than a dollar for a skewer with a couple shiitake caps on it, but really a lot of the chicken shouldn't cost as much as it does either. Oh sure, each individual stick is $3-$4, but it takes A LOT of those to get full. And they don't have any combos or anything like that.
Also, for what it is, it's very crowded here, and you have to wait a long time for seating. And some of the seats just plan suck.
Final observation: their sake + citrus cocktails are delicious.
It was between this place & Babbo for a mini-reunion dinner during our visit to NYC. Since Mario Batali wouldn't give us a table, Yakitori Totto it was.
I made reservations 2 weeks ahead for a 7PM dinner & I'm so glad I did. The restaurant is TINY but nicely decorated. It was close to the hotel we stayed out (6 Columbus) and it didn't take us long to hoof it to make our reservation on time.
We ordered the following:
Fried Wanton Cheese
Tako Wasa (raw octopus in spicy wasabi sauce) - this was especially good & my boyfriend's favorite
Jidori Karaage (japanese fried chicken)
Avocado & Tuna Salad - SO good, I could eat this all day
Reba yakitori (chicken liver)
Hatsu yakitori (chicken heart)
Bonchiri yakitori (chicken tail)
Kuro Buta Negi Pon yakitori (organic pork w/scallion & ponzu)
Asparagus Bacon yakitori
Enoki Bacon yakitori (mushroom in bacon)
Jidori Donabe Gohan (rice w/chicken cooked in earthenware pot)
I wanted but the restaurant was out of:
Hiza Nankotsu yakitori (chicken soft knee bone)
Chicken Oyster yakitori (rare part of chicken thigh - sot l'y laisse)
I loved everything we ordered - there wasn't an item I thought I could've done without. I knew traditional yakitori places served the "strange" parts of the chicken & I wanted to try it. Too bad the restaurant was out.
Though it kinda seemed otherwise, this place is actually pretty good for a group of 6 (max - they don't have a table bigger). Having more people allows you to order & try many different items.
3 1/2 stars.
I really like the chicken meatballs with brown sauce and sometimes quail egg. The chicken wings, chicken butt, gizzards, gyoza, kimchee, chicken meatballs surrounded by sticky rice, are all outstanding. Almost everything is really good here. Never tried the chicken sashimi though. And probably never will.
The kirin draft is very refreshing.
The place is usually busy, and the service a little anal, which can be annoying, and it is not cheap.
1. Here are my disclaimer: I'm not from NYC and thus I've only been to this place once.
2. On the otherhand, I know what real yakitori is because I grew up in a Japanese household and lived in Japan x 1 year and had plenty of authentic yakitori in various smoky hole in the wall bars across Japan etc...
3. With the above being said, I've never had really good authentic yakitori in America and after being to this place, that opinion still holds. This place is nice, it's clean, but the problem is that the food is just... lacking. It's not bad, but on the otherhand, it just doesn't have the succulent, perfectly roasted chicken. Furthermore the "tare" (ie sauce / glaze) was... terrible. Did these guys pour it out of a can or something? The other thing that points to the inauthentic nature of the place is that even though one sits at the bar, one can't order their yakitori from the chef; one has to go through the waitress.
4. Bottomline: if you've never had yakitori, this place is a good place to go because you won't know the difference and the food is ok. On the otherhand, if you're really looking for authentic yakitori (and you know what authentic yakitori is), then definitely skip this place because it will disappoint you.
4.5 stars
came here last night after a poetry reading in the neighborhood.
maybe we lucked out, but there was no wait for a table (although people were waiting for a seat at the bar - go figure) service was likewise prompt, and attentive, without ever rushing us. (the waitress was cute too - but the other waitress - well - i couldn't take my eyes off her - but i digress)
looks like they have a really good selection of sake and shochu, which i would normally have dived into like esther williams in august, but i was in more of a beer mood. sadly (though not surprisingly) the beer selection is limited, and really doesn't cover the types of ales i prefer, but that's a minor matter.
onto the food. being late they were out of the chicken oysters and chicken asses, er make that tail, for the sake of the squeamish, so we had to pass on those
we had:
1st round -
SHISHITOU TSUKUNE: chicken meat ball stuffed into jap. green pepper
ENOKI BACON: enoki mushroom wrapped in a slice of bacon
KURO BUTA KARASHI LEMON: organic pork w/ lemon & mustard
NEGIMA: thigh & scallion
YAKI NASU: eggplant w/ponzu & bonito flakes
all of these were great, the stuffed pepper and the enoki stood out, and the eggplant came with some grated ginger that was a really nice touch
as we were finishing this we saw the people at the next table eating tiny bites of something from a sake cup sized bowl. it annoyed me that i could not figure out what it was. so i interrupted their date to ask them. they said it was a small pot of pickled wasabi root. i snagged the waitress and asked her to bring us one. amazing. strong, sinus clearing, and salty as hell. wonderful stuff. afterwards i found it on the menu - thusly:
KIZAMI WASABI SHOYUZUKE: chopped japanese horseradish w/ soy sauce
we were enjoying the food and the conversation so we opted to move on to
2nd round-
KAISOU SALAD: seaweed salad w/ japanese plum dressing
we also had two dishes that do not appear on the online menus i've been cutting and pasting from (yes the secret is out) but are on the menu there. one was a plate of deep fried tiny little silverfish, maybe 2 inches long and as thin as a shoestring fry, (actually the looked a little like fries with eyes) served with a mix of salt and powdered green tea to dip them into and buckwheat dumplings served in a broth made of dashi and pollack roe.
the seaweed salad was the best i've ever had, hands down.
the fried fish were a great beer snack, very tasty , although if i were to drop one item from what we ate it would probably be them - not that anything was wrong with them, it was just overkill, and the dumplings were different than anything i've ever had, delicious and quintessentially japanese.
all in all - WIN!!!
Very authentic yakitori as well as appetizers and side dishes. But don't order the cartiledge/bone/nankotsu. I love fried nankotsu, and I thought that would be what it was, but it's just a hunk of bone. There's hardly any flavor, since it's probably hard to add flavor to... bone, and even I got a little queasy after trying to eat two hunks of bone.
The service is pretty good, although they can get quite busy and a little bit hard to flag down. But they were very accomodating when my boyfriend and brother were holding a table for 3 while I was running a bit late.
I've been to the Midtown East location too, and that time, my friend and I went there quite late, and a lot of things were out, including the "hatsu", chicken heart, that I LOVE. Seriously, try the heart, if you've been a little scared of trying it. So go there early if you want to be able to sample a wide range of things off the menu.
Prices are a little high-brow, but definitely not a rip-off. Go there with friends, order a bunch of yakitori, split it, and have a good time.
I honestly wasn't and still isn't a fan of Totto's yakitori. the food were very well presented, neat and nice, but it still didnt change the fact that they tasted very average. it didn't bring out the character of yakitoris. smoky, burnt stick, oil all over the meat and stick. that's what i want.
I was very tempted in giving this review a 1 star because of my very recent bad experience with our server, but i guess she was just overworked that day.
The best yakitori I've ever had!
My friend and I didn't know beforehand that there's a $20 minimum per person but we ended up spending well beyond that.
The pork and beef yakitoris were our favorite -- the chicken and vegetable ones were good, but you might as well skip to the best ones!
Looks like they also have some great non-yakitori dishes, but we couldn't really figure out what they were.
This place doesn't have very many places to sit so get there early and go in small parties!
My wife told me to give it three stars, and in many ways she's right, but then I'd have to rethink my whole rating system and I'm too full.
Ok for starters, the service was good when we were there. Some reviewers have obviously had bad experiences but not us.
The ambiance is great, especially when juxtaposed against midtown, which is like hell for me.
The meal was mildly expensive, $200 including tip for two with no true entrees, but I guess this is New York, so whatever.
The food. Yakitori was at worst mediocre, and at best really great. the chicken meatballs, the chicken heart, the shishamo, the chicken negima with green onion and the eringi mushroom were all outstanding. the rest was "meh..." the homemade tofu cooked in a hotpot was really great. oh yeah the quail egg for dipping was awesome. They grill over white charcoal from Japan, the sweetest kind. It makes a real difference from using gas and should be seen.
I would highly recommend that any fans of yakitori, or chicken for that matter, go here.
We came here because my friend had heard that this is one of Anthony Bourdain's fave restos. Whether or not that is true, who knows, but thanks to that nugget of info, we were able to happen upon this fabulous joint. The yakitori here was awesome. Every bite is heavenly... I can almost recall with perfect clarity the wonderfulness of the beef tongue and it's other tasty food partners. I would happily frequent this place if I lived in NY. Beware the wait, it was long, but thankfully the hostess took our cell phone and called us when they were ready.
And when a cat gives up fish for chicken, you know what that means.
This might be my favorite restaurant in the city. The only reason it gets 4 stars is because sometimes the service isn't prompt but service shouldn't be the reason one comes here. The food is OUT OF THIS WORLD. Everything is cooked to perfection. It's like straight out of a hole-in-the-wall in Japan. My favorite is the kobe beef tongue. Phenomenal. Other things I usually order are the Totto salad (amazing dressing), gyoza, tsukune chicken meatball, eggplant with miso (although sometimes they put a lot of miso paste on...which can easily be scraped off), and grilled rice balls. A lot of people really like the yakitori chicken parts (neck, tail, etc) and they are quick to sell out.
There is almost always a wait so I would recommend making a reservation. You can reserve a table up to 7:00pm. They don't take any reservations after that because the place is small and there are just too many walk-ins. If you don't reserve or want to eat before 7:00pm, you will have to wait a good 45 minutes to an hour. I would really recommend going early.
LOVE Yakitori Totto. I agree with Diana N's review - I will gladly eat anything off the menu. The yakitori are all well done - always flavorful and rarely dry. Their porridges/jook are great (on the watery side, which is how I like it), but surprisingly, the salads are my favorite. For $8-10, most Japanese places will give you a small garden salad, but YT gives you HUGE portions, with really tasty dressings (the Totto salad with mustard dressing is my fave)
The place is really small, so get there early, and try to sit at the bar (I think the party size probably needs to be 1-2, otherwise you'll get seated at a table). Watching them prepare the yakitori is a treat.
This place is pretty much perfect. The entire staff and a good portion is Japanese, which for me is always a good sign. There's barely enough room to breathe in the joint which leads to pretty long waits, but its completely worth it.
The best seats in the house are at the bar where you can watch the action at the grill. I've never seen more dedicated cooks; you can see them concentrating with all their might on every single piece of food that passes through their hands. You know how sometimes you get flare ups at a bbq and the meat singes; you'll actually see them putting out individual flare ups with a little water bottle and their bare hands.
Highly recommend it, its a great place to enjoy some yakitori and sake with friends. I would suggest being bold and trying some of the more exotic cuts of chicken, if there's any place to expand your horizons its this place, where the ingredients are first class and their skill can take it over the finish line.
Once and then never. It left me a bad impression on all the japanese yakitori.
I came here with full anticipation for trying japanese yakitori at the first time and I even had done research on yelp for its popular dishes. However, the food was too PLAIN with no sauce and we spent $40 each person. No discount even during this harsh time~
Recommendation:
Yawaraka Annin Tofu- creamy apricot kernel tofu $5.50
Hiza Nankotsu- soft knee bone $3.00 (for only 1 stick!)
Enoki Bacon- enoki mushroom wrapped in a slice of bacon $3.50
Tsukune Umejiso- organic chicken meat bali with japanese shiso mint 3.50
Tori Dango- Steamed Rice Dumplings with organic chicken meatballs inside $8.00
Good:
Reba- Chicken Liver 2.50
Kuruma Ebi- Prawn 4.00
The Negi- Tori Don charcoal-broiled organic chicken with scallion and raw egg over rice 10.00
Bad:
Nagomi Maccha Purin- green tea pudding with azuki beans 5.50
Dashi Maki Tamago- japanese soft rolled omelette 7.00 (Cheaper but worse than the tamago I bought in Sunrise Mart! )
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Their Hours: 5:30pm-12am
Please enjoy my pic of it, too~
Happy Hour!
Neighborhood: Lower East Side
now serving on sundays!
Neighborhood: East Village
Neighborhood: Midtown East
Category: Japanese
Neighborhood: Midtown East
Category: Japanese
Neighborhood: Theater District
Category: Japanese
Neighborhood: Midtown East
Category: Japanese
Neighborhood: Upper East Side
Category: Japanese
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