Japanese Restaurant “TOKU”
212 Piccadilly, London, W1J 9HX, UK
Review for Wednesday 18 March 2009.
It is well located next to Piccadilly Circus, almost at the corner. So if you are visiting this touristic area of London and feel hungry 
, this is a good place to stop especially considering all the tourist traps around with some nasty food.
Anteros
Above: not Eros but Anteros
They are open midday to 10pm excepted on Sunday when they close at 8pm.
Prices are around £9 to £13 for a main course. Of course things can be a lot more expensive like £25 and above for sashimi etc but it is still a cheap restaurant. It is not a romantic place 
but if you want to eat decent food and be served quickly, the Toku is fine.
They have many set meals which include free refills of miso soup and also the bowl of wasabi peas.
Drink: they have many Japanese beer but my main complaint is they are not cold enough for my liking. This time we decided to take a bottle of wine and the choice was very restricted: only one bottle of a Chilean red wine (Los Vilos 2007 – Cabernet Sauvignon) if you want to drink a red wine. We found it too sweet but that’s maybe because we are into dry wine. It was perfectly drinkable 
Starters:
Tamagoyaki (Japanese omelette). See at the left the bowl of wasabi peas. They are seriously hot, more than the ones you buy at the supermarket Japan Centre located next to the restaurant. They used to share the same place previously. The omelette was very good with the soya sauce.
Tamagoyaki (Japanese omelette)
Two pieces of deep friend tofu (Agedashi tofu). They were very good too.
Agedashi tofu
Main courses:
Fried tuna with a chili sauce. It was the meal of the day. I was worried about it being too dry but I was wrong. It was juicy inside and crispy outside. The chilli sauce was hardly spicy but it was tasty. Even the mayonnaise was fine mixed with the chilli sauce.
Fried tuna with a chili sauce
Tonkatsu: breaded pork served with a salad. Very good too. The yellow sauce you see is the Japanese mustard. They provide the Bulldog sauce on each table.
Tonkatsu
Price & conclusion: the cost was £47.63 (4.50 & 5.50 for the starters, 8.80 & 11 for the main courses and 13.50 for the bottle of wine. A 10% service charge was automatically added to the bill: 4.33).
The diner was quite good, served very quickly and the service was efficient & polite. Recommended if you are in the area!
Bike ride in Piccadilly Circus
After drinking a bottle of wine, you do not take your car for going home. What about a bike ride?
