Torigen Shinjuku Nishiguchi

On our first night in Tokyo, my friends and I decided to explore Shinjuku. The area around Shinjuku Station is filled with restaurants, some of which had long line-​ups. Instead of joining a line (we were starving!), we decided to give Torigen a try as we noticed some locals walking in and out.
Similar to every izakaya in Toronto, it was dimly lit, busy, and full of chatter.
We were seated in a little room at the end of the booth seating, and as a result, the service was not so great. The servers spoke little English, but English menus were available. Both the food and drink menus were extensive — different types of beers, sake, cocktails, skewers, grilled items, rice bowls, and soba noodles. I’d say… the prices were pretty average in comparison to similar restaurants we visited during our stay in Japan.
The moment we saw «matcha beer» we knew we had to try it out. The matcha flavour lingered a little after every gulp, but the flavour was not as strong as I had expected. (They even have «tomato beer» if you dare to try!)
Some of us ordered combos (chicken & egg rice bowls and fried chicken rice bowls), which came with miso soup and pickled vegetables, and others ordered soba noodles, grilled chicken wings, and meat skewers. Everybody enjoyed their meals, except the soba noodles were nothing special and the pickled vegetables had a different ‘pickled taste’ than what we were used to. We were also not used to having a bowl of slimy raw egg white to pour over the rice. It was quite interesting…
With so many restaurant options in the vicinity, I will probably try something different next time I am in the Shinjuku area. But Torigen is not a bad choice if all else fails (long line-​ups and all).

Yakitori could have been better here — but we came for a nightcap with a few of our group members. We had many things but I wasn’t so hungry so I only tried a few items:
— beef tongue: a bit salty
— mochi & bacon: bacon tasted like ham, and mochi was tasteless
— cucumber salad: very salty as well
This place allows you to smoke, and we got our own private room away from smokers and because we had a large party. Probably won’t return here, wasn’t a fan of their food.