I took my wife our for our 19th anniversary a few weeks ago. I let her pick the restaurant and agreed I would pay. A win win for her, but it was my pleasure to make her happy.
The restaurant she chose is called Den in Hachioji, Japan. Den is one of those dinning experience you expect to have while in Tokyo, excellent atmosphere, service and food. It's is a unique restaurant and you realize that as soon as you walk down the stairs and enter. In the center of the restaurant is the kitchen surrounded by fresh vegetables. Chefs are busily moving about, grabbing some of those vegetables for the dishes they are creating while having casual conversations with customers sitting at the counter.
The concept of the restaurant is "delicious homemade food paired with sake or other spirits can only be enjoyed in a fun atmosphere". I must say, they pulled this concept off close to flawlessly.
As we sat down our waitress was spirited, but not in a bad way. More like a casual, but very attentive friend. I've rarely experienced this kind of service in Japan and it was refreshing, comforting, almost homemade.
My wife has been to Den a few times with her friends and really wanted to take me there so I also let her order the first round of food & drinks. "Osusume" = your recommendation.
Of course we started out with drinks paired with a mandatory appetizer. This is very common in Japan so it was not unexpected. The appetizer was a bacon potage soup and it was fantastic.
Creamy, difficult to pin down the flavor, accented with bacon & croutons, I could not stop eating it. It wasn't salty or filling and had a very homemade flavor. Everything at Den is made in house.
Paired with the potage was tofu. I not a fan of tofu to be honest unless it's agedashi tofu. Flavorless bean curd is just that, but this tofu did have a bit of something extra to it. After eating that potage the tofu was unnecessary though.
Next up was my wife's favorite snack, a lightly smokey flavored cream cheese with some sort of seasoning I couldn't figure out.
The cheese was very rich & creamy and a delicious snack while waiting for the main dishes. We loved these so much we ended up sharing three dishes of them during the night.
Then out came my first menu selection, thick bacon potato salad.
I love Japanese potato salad so I will always order some if it's on the menu. This one just happened to kick things up a notch with some thick cut bacon, the real kind, not the Japanese ham that they usually pass off as bacon.
After this our waitress came by and asked us how everything tasted, if she could get us more drinks or anything else. I was impressed by this as this kind of service is usually reserved for higher end restaurants in Japan. We both replied everything was delicious so far, we'd love some shochu and did she have any recommendation. She did and suggested the pork with black garlic sauce so we ordered that as well.
In the mean time the next dish came out for me, kani cream koroke. When koroke are done right they are so delicious. This proved to be one of those times, although with a twist. The shell was light & crunchy, the interior thick, creamy and both topped with and sitting on bed of crab.
It so good and my mouth is watering just writing about the experience.
Along with the koroke came some wagyu yakitori skewers. They were as delicious as you would expect wagyu to taste.
A delicious ceasar salad with a poached egg arrived sometime during all of this, but I forgot to take a picture of it. It was as good as everything else though.
Last out was our main dish, a roast pork with a black garlic sauce & potatoes. My only complaint about this dish was it needed more of the delicious sauce! My wife and I were fighting to soak our pork in the sauce it was so good.
We decided to skip dessert and instead enjoy a few more glasses of sweet potato shochu and each other's company before finishing up the night. It was a wonderful evening for our anniversary, my wife even said as much!
Everything about Den has made it one of my go to places now in Hachioji, the food, the service & the atmosphere. I look forward to taking my wife there again as soon I get home this summer.
If you happen to be in Hachioji, look up Den, you won't regret it!
Here is their promotion video.
Here is a link to their homepage. https://www.den-standard.jp/den.html
Thanks for reading!