Dote No Iseya (土手の伊勢屋 (どてのいせや)) Restaurant, Tokyo, Japan

Dote No Iseya (土手の伊勢屋 (どてのいせや)) is a restaurant  specializing in tempura over rice bowls, Tempura Donburi (天ぷら丼ぶり) - better known as Tendon (天丼), using conger eel (穴子, anago) since 1889. There are many tendon restaurants in Tokyo that are easier to visit and offer tendon at more affordable prices than this restaurant. This 130+ year restaurant is located in the northeast of Tokyo far from any tourist attractions and is accessible by only one subway line. The restaurant only has 28 seats, does not take reservations, is only open 3.5 hours a day, five days a week for lunch from 11:00 to 14:30, and there is always a long queue to enter, especially on the weekends. Eating at this restaurant requires a conscious effort to make the journey and then patience in the queue to enter, yet is always full, and is patronized by both locals and tourists alike. Why would someone make a special trip to an inconveniently located restaurant with limited hours and a long queue to eat a dish that costs more than other similar easily reached restaurants?

The simple answer is that the food is very good, but in my opinion people come here for the entire experience of dining on well prepared fresh food in a unique environment. The restaurant is listed as one of the best places to eat tendon in Tokyo by Time Out Tokyo [1] and was also featured in a video segment on Japan's public TV station NHK (the video is no longer available online). The size of the tendon served at this restaurant is large, even by American standards, and the quality and freshness of the ingredients, especially the conger eel, form the restaurant's signature tendon dishes. Finally, the restaurant is housed in one of the few surviving original wooden buildings in Tokyo dating from 1927.

Continue reading the rest of the article to find out more about my visit to Dote No Iseya on 10 Nov 2019 and to see more photographs.

The weekday queue to eat at Dote No Iseya

Dote No Iseya is housed in the same wooden building that was constructed in 1927 after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake destroyed most of Tokyo. The actual name of the restaurant in English is: Dote No Iseya on the Bank, which describes the original building that was on the bank of a branch of the Sumida River. The bank collapsed during the earthquake, destroying the surrounding area, and the land was leveled during reconstruction (the river branch no longer exists) before the current building was constructed. The wooden building also survived the fires of the World War II Tokyo Air Raids and is one of the few remaining wooden buildings from that era in the area. The building was certified as a registered tangible cultural property in 2010.

Normally I hate waiting in line to eat at a restaurant, but I knew ahead of time that there would be a long queue after researching the restaurant. Usually when I know that there will be a long wait, I try to arrive before the restaurant opens at 11:00. Unfortunately, this was not possible since I needed to go to another place earlier that day, which was one hour away by subway, before I could come to eat here. So I did not arrive at the restaurant until 12:30 after a 10 minute walk from Tokyo Metro's Minowa Station, the nearest subway station. I came on a weekday to eat here and when I arrived, the queue wrapped around the building. I did not get inside the restaurant until 13:30, so I waited outside for about one hour just to enter the building. I can only imagine how long the queue would be if I had come on a weekend.

Orders are taken in the queue

The restaurant is well prepared to handle the long queues everyday they are open. There are outside seats for those waiting that wrap around the front of the building, but expect to stand for a while until a seat becomes available as people in the queue enter the restaurant. Also the staff comes out to take your order before you enter the restaurant and if you are not a regular customer, give you a pamphlet about the restaurant (unfortunately only written in Japanese). So once you enter the restaurant and are seated inside, your order is already being prepared since each meal is started only after an order is received by the kitchen. This practice also maximizes the number of customers that can be accommodated for lunch during their limited opening hours since order preparation can start before, rather than after, a customer enters the restaurant. There is an English menu for those (like me) who cannot speak or read Japanese, but it is best to know what you want to order by consulting their website, http://www.dotenoiseya.jp, before arriving at the restaurant. The website is only in Japanese and the English link only has a menu with outdated prices.

Dote No Iseya etched windows

While you wait outside, you are reminded of the meal to come since you will smell the sesame oil used to fry the dishes from the kitchen ventilation system wafting throughout the neighborhood. Good restaurants in Japan that serve tempura-based dishes only use sesame oil for frying, which is more expensive to use than other oils, and imparts great flavor and mouth-feel to the tempura. You will also have a chance to examine and take photos of the historic wooden building housing the restaurant. The person ahead of me was a regular and spoke English. Once he heard me tell the staff that I did not speak Japanese, he helped me communicate with the person taking orders. He was also prepared for the wait since he brought a magazine to read to pass the time. Luckily the weather was nice, so the wait was pleasant.

Dote No Iseya's retro interior

The restaurant is not only in a historic wooden building, but the interior decoration also reflects the era in which the building was constructed. When you enter the restaurant, it does feel like that you've gone back in time to when the building was built and is part of the allure to coming to the restaurant. Unfortunately, I did not get the opportunity to take many pictures inside while waiting for my food because of the short amount of time, the small size of the restaurant, and the sheer volume of customers. Note that you cannot take pictures of the kitchen for some reason; the staff was very emphatic about this and I doubt there are any trade secrets that would be revealed. In Japan, it is considered an unspoken breech of etiquette to remain in your seat at a restaurant longer than it takes to eat your meal if there are other customers waiting. So picture taking while eating your meal (outside of quickly photographing the food) or lingering afterwards would be frowned upon. The restaurant's website has pictures of the interior that gives a feel of the atmosphere. [2]

As was previously stated, the restaurant does not take reservations and only has 28 table seats. While the staff will do their best to seat you as a group, the tables only hold four people each. You do not get a choice of where to sit; the staff fills the empty seats at each table as they become available. I was by myself, so I was seated with three other people in the queue at a table that had become vacant. It so happened that the other three people were regulars (including the English speaking person that helped me), since the staff seemed to recognize them. I am not sure how the restaurant's seating policy is operating now during the COVID pandemic since the restaurant is small and diners sit shoulder-to-shoulder.

After being seated, the staff took orders for any other menu items (besides the previously ordered main dishes that were taken outside in the queue) and there was about a 10 minute wait before the main dish was served. It is very common in Japan to find a list of menu items written in Japanese  that can be ordered in a holder at each table. These items are usually specialties or specials for the day that may or may not be listed in the printed menu. Many times the items are appetizers that go well with your favorite alcohol consumed before the main course. One of my tablemates ordered eel bone crackers (骨煎餅, ほねせんべい, hone senbei; literally: bone rice crackers) to go with his sake. After the eel is filleted, the eel spine bones are fried, become crispy, and you eat them like potato chips. While I did not order them here, eel bone crackers are very tasty and follows the Japanese philosophy to not waste any part of an animal being consumed.

Conger eel liver soup served with tendon

The restaurant is known for the freshness of the conger eel (穴子, anago) served in their tendon. The conger eel is a saltwater eel (as opposed to unagi (ウナギ), which is a freshwater eel) and is kept alive in a special tank outside the restaurant before being dispatched and prepared (filleted) that morning. The restaurant not only prides itself on the freshness of the conger eel, only preparing the eel tempura upon order, but also the freshness of all the other ingredients used in their dishes. Only sesame oil is used to make the tempura and the scent wafts throughout the neighborhood which made waiting in the queue even harder. There are other tempura dishes on the menu, but the three signature tendon items, which are served with homemade pickles and conger eel liver soup, are:

• I (イ - pronounced "e")

• Tempura fish, squid, two prawn, and green pepper.

• ¥1600

• Ro (ロ)

• Tempura conger eel, squid, prawn, and two kinds of vegetable.

• ¥2100

• Ha (ハ)

• Tempura conger eel, kakiage of small shrimp, prawn, seasonal fish, and three kinds of vegetable.

• ¥2600

• Information and prices are accurate as of the published date of this article and are subject to change.

If you are going to order a tendon, you should order one with conger eel. Of course, you should order the Ha (ハ) tendon, which offers the greatest selection of tempura ingredients and happens to be the most expensive. I ordered the Ha (ハ) tendon and it turned out to be a massive amount of food. After eating this huge late lunch (it was served around 13:40), I was full for the rest of the day and did not need to eat dinner that evening.

The tempura conger eel is a full boneless fillet of half the eel after the head and spine bones are removed. The spine bones are used to make eel bone crackers and, I am guessing, that the head is used for soup stock. So as the tempura eel rests on the rice, the fillet hangs over the bowl on both sides. The kakiage of small shrimp is small shrimp mixed with a batter and then deep fried in sesame oil, forming what can best be described as a crispy shrimp pancake. The tempura prawn, seasonal fish, and three kinds of vegetables crowd the top of the rice, which is topped with the restaurant's special sauce, together with the tempura conger eel and shrimp kakiage to complete the tendon. The freshly made overflowing tendon bowl is then presented to the customer. All together, the tendon is very well made and very tasty. Conger eel liver soup and homemade pickles are also served.

I enjoyed eating the tendon at Dote No Iseya (especially the tempura conger eel), but would I go back again if given the opportunity? My answer to that question would be that it is definitely worth the one hour wait to experience eating in this historic building at this enduring top rated tendon restaurant once. However, now that I have had the experience, I am unlikely to go back since (as I mentioned before) I dislike waiting in lines to eat, the location is not convenient, and there are so many more restaurants in Tokyo that I have not eaten at.

The queue (still the same length) when I left at 14:00

Dote No Iseya is a cash-only restaurant, as are most restaurants in Japan. In Japan, after you are served your order, the staff brings the bill and places it on the table. If you order more items, the bill is adjusted, but once you are finished with your meal, you bring the bill to the cashier to pay in cash (there is no tipping). In Japan, it is not unusual to pay a bill in cash that is the equivalent of multi-hundred US dollars. Very few restaurants, except in hotels and large restaurants in tourist areas, accept credit cards. Some restaurants accept electronic money cards for payment, like Suica, [3] which is usually used to pay for rail, subway, and bus trips. Do not pay your bill by leaving money on the table and attempt to leave the restaurant as you do in the USA.

After paying my bill (in cash) at the cashier, I left the restaurant around 14:00. As I walked out the front door, I saw that there was still a queue and that it had not changed in length. The restaurant closes at 14:30 and it was pretty apparent that in the next 30 minutes, not all the people in the queue would get into the restaurant, yet there were hungry people still waiting in line hoping to enter and eat. Such is the draw of this restaurant.

Dote No Iseya (土手の伊勢屋 (どてのいせや)) Restaurant Information and Access

Name:

• Dote No Iseya

• 土手の伊勢屋 (どてのいせや)

Address:

• 1 Chome-9-2 Nihonzutsumi, Taito City, Tokyo 111-0021, Japan

• 〒111-0021 東京都台東区日本堤１丁目９−2

Access:

• Plan your rail trip using Hyperdia: http://www.hyperdia.com/en/.

• The restaurant is a 10 min (800m) walk from Exit 1A, Minowa Station on the Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line.

• The Japan Rail Pass is not valid for use on Tokyo Metro lines.

• Electronic money IC cards, such as JR East's Suica, [3] can be used on Tokyo's subway lines.

Hours and Phone Number:

• Restaurant Hours:

• 11:00-14:30

• Closed Wed, and every 4th Tue. (normally)
• Please consult the restaurant's website for their current opening days, which have changed since Tokyo's declaration of a state of emergency due to the pandemic.

• Phone:

• +81 3-3872-4886

• Information is accurate as of the published date of this article and is subject to change.

Websites:

• Dote No Iseya (Japanese):

• http://www.dotenoiseya.jp/

• The English link only has an English menu with outdated prices, however the Japanese website has current information.

• Suica Card:

• https://www.jreast.co.jp/e/pass/suica.html

• Plan your rail and subway trip using Hyperdia:

• http://www.hyperdia.com/en/

Map:

References

[1]  Time Out Tokyo. "Best tendon in Tokyo". Last accessed: 9 May 2021. https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/restaurants/best-tempura-in-tokyo-15-bowls-to-try.

[2] Dote No Iseya. "Information, Inside the store photo" (Japanese). Last accessed: 11 May 2021. http://www.dotenoiseya.jp/info/.

[3] Wikipedia. "Suica". Last accessed: 17 May 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suica.

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