Tamai Nihonbashi Main Branch Review Summary

We find the restaurant by chance (OK, google Maps chance) it was our first time eating conger eel like in this traditional way, and it was delicious.
You can adjust the size of the meal to your hunger and choose the way you will your eel (boiled or grilled)
Great experience in a pleasant atmosphere. The staff is friendly and helps you with your order.

At first, I misunderstood this restaurant—I thought they served unagi (freshwater eel), but it was actually anago (sea eel). My partner told me it wouldn’t be as good since I had only ever eaten unagi before.

But guess what? It was an absolutely delicious meal! It wasn’t too greasy, and the flavor was amazing. Even my partner said it was the best anago he had ever tried. It was so good!

Go for the big size—totally worth it!

I ordered the Matsu course from tabelog as I wanted to get a reservation for a Sunday evening. When I showed up, the restaurant was not super full so there’s a possibility that one would not need a recommendation. The set was over 10,000 yen and I felt that it was a prolonged appetizer for the eel box. The appetizers and courses leading up to it were fine but probably not things I’d order a la carte.

The pacing also took a while so you’re just waiting for the main dish.

I would simply go in there and order the eel box.

We randomly found an unagi (eel) restaurant for lunch in Nihonbashi. I ordered the large portion with three pieces of eel, and my girlfriend ordered the medium portion with two pieces. The prices were reasonable: a small portion with one eel costs 2,300 yen, the medium is 3,600 yen, and the large is also 3,600 yen. When we arrived, there was no line, but shortly after we sat down, people started lining up behind us.

I learned that day that there are several ways to enjoy unagi:

1 Eat it as is.
2 Dip it in sesame seeds, wasabi, and green onions.
3 Add the yuzu powder on the side. There’s a small gap in the iron plate with yuzu powder, and you need to use a small brush to scrape the powder out.
4 There’s a small red gourd on the table filled with sansho pepper powder, which you can sprinkle on.
5 On your plate, there’s a small cup with an eel bone inside. At the end of the meal, the staff will pour soup from a spouted kettle into the cup. You can mix the eel and rice into a bowl and pour the soup over it to enjoy it as a rice soup (ochazuke).

I thought the first four ways of eating were decent but nothing extraordinary. However, the last way, with the soup rice, was absolutely flavorful and impressive. The earlier methods had a lot of sauce on the eel, which was quite sweet, but the soup really helped to cut through the richness.

The Japanese women next to us were all eating the small portion with one eel, while we, being big eaters, ordered much more.

This is a special little gem. Setting is not fancy, but traditional. They specialize in serving eel, but they also have a nice donburi bowl. The server was extremely friendly and helpful. It was very comforting that she was able to speak English fairly well and explain things to us. She went out of her way to help us choose what to order for our kids, explained how to enjoy the food in their traditional manner, and even gave the kids some gifts for a souvenir. The eel plates were ordered were the small size, but it was enough for our small family of four.