Touan

We went to an old favorite in the neighborhood tonight for dinner. It's called Touan and it's kind of an upscale Izakaya type restaurant. An Izakaya is a style of drinking establishment where there are a large variety of appetizer like items on the menu. Rather than ordering an entree you order lots of individual smaller dishes. Izakaya's are popular for social events as it's easy to order drinks and lots of finger foods for people to dig into.

Anyhow, Touan is an upscale izakaya with lots of smaller specialty dishes as well as a excellent selection of plum wines and sake. I have not explored the entire restaurant, but every time we've been there we've been seated in our own small private section - big enough for 4-5 people. There is a nice bar (pictured) that is usually full of customers, but besides that I think there are only private rooms throughout the place, ranging from smaller ones (like ours) to larger ones that could accomodate 8-12 people.

We had a few drinks, sampling the recommended plum wines and sake, and then ordered some of their recommended dishes including warm home-made tofu, gyoza stuffed with tofu (amazing!), and various chicken dishes. I love this place because you get great service, top quality food, and the bill isn't all that bad. After stuffing ourselves it ended up running about $100. That included several drinks and plenty of top quality dishes.

Touan will definitely be included on our list everytime we stay in the Aoyama area.