We hop on the open-air mobile restaurant for dinner, drinks, and some of the Tokyo area’s most unique night views.
Location is a key factor for any restaurant that’s looking to craft an atmosphere more enjoyable for its customers than just strapping on a feedbag. It’s a pretty unusual situation, then, that one of the classiest dinners we’ve had recently was at an eatery with no set address.
We did at least, though, have a location to go to for the start of our meal: the street in front of downtown Tokyo’s Marunouchi Building, right next to Tokyo Station.
That’s because tonight we’d be dining on the Tokyo Restaurant Bus. Operated by Willer (the same company behind Japan’s premium overnight buses), Tokyo Restaurant Bus is a combination mobile meal/bus tour, with multiple routes staring in Tokyo for lunch or dinner drives.
For our outing, we selected a course that would actually take us outside the city limits and into Kawasaki, Tokyo’s neighbor to the south, to see some of the most unique and captivatingly beautiful nighttime scenery in the area.
We boarded the double-decker bus, which has a full kitchen on its first floor and passenger seating on the second, and were served hors d’oeuvre and a welcome cocktail.
▼ The bus is equipped with sturdy drink holders and non-slip-surface tables, so you don’t have to worry about anything spilling or sliding while the bus is making its way around town.
With the midday heat giving way to a pleasantly balmy summer evening, the Tokyo Restaurant Bus staff removed the dining area’s roof panels…
…and we were underway!
The first section of the route takes you by such famous landmarks as Tokyo Tower, Zojoji Temple, the Rainbow Bridge, and the Azabudai Hills high-rise. Being seated above other vehicles on the road and with no roof between you and the sky, the lines of sight are great, providing a different perspective than you’d get on foot or in a taxi. We even caught a glimpse of two Shinkansen trains passing each other, and also got some nice, wide-angle views of Tokyo Bay.
The roof is temporarily closed up again and food/drink service suspended for the quick expressway trip south to Kawasaki, but once you arrive it’s opened up again to provide better views of the city’s famous factories.
Several facilities are situated in a row stretching south just a little past Haneda Airport, and in recent years they’ve become an after-dark sightseeing draw. The Tokyo Restaurant Bus had set its schedule so that we reached Kawasaki just after the sun had gone down and the lights came on.
A knowledgeable member of the restaurant’s staff provided explanations of what they various factories produce, and even clued us in on the nicknames photography and infrastructure fans have given a few, such as the “White Castle” and “Noble Twin Sisters.”
Speaking of photography, the Tokyo Restaurant Bus does stop along this part of the route so that you can get off and snap pictures, and the staff is happy to them of you and your group if you’d like. As for the photos we took ourselves, some of our favorites were the ones of factories with mercury-vapor exterior lamps, which give off a green glow that makes the facilities look like something out of Final Fantasy VII. Many factories are looking to replace this older equipment with LEDs, which will shine a bright white, though, so the ones that still have a green glow are in the “see-them-while-you-can” category.
Back on the bus, it was time for more food and more drinks.
The main-course roast beef was fantastic, thick but tender and juicy. All of the side dishes were excellent as well, far beyond what we would have thought possible for cooked-on-a-bus fare. The service was polished and attentive too.
There was even dessert, creme brulee and mango cake, produced in partnership with the gourmet Ginza Onodera restaurant group.
Once dinner is done, the lights are turned down low, giving the rest of the ride a magical feeling as the ambient light sifts into the seating area.
In total, our experience lasted three and a half hours (and yes, this is an onboard restroom), with a boarding time of 6 p.m., two 10-minute parking breaks in which we could get off the bus to take photos, and a final arrival at Kawasaki Station at 9:30, with a cost of 13,800 yen (US$95) per person. Tokyo Restaurant Bus has many other routes too, including ones through Tokyo’s Asakusa, Ginza, and Harajuku neighborhoods. They also offer lunch cruises, family-oriented meals, and Japanese cuisine, and you can even rent out an entire bus for a private mobile dining experience for you and your friends and family. Full details can be found on the Tokyo Restaurant Bus official website here.
Related: Tokyo Restaurant Bus official website
Photos ©SoraNews24
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
