Bincho

Bincho
16 Old Compton Street
Soho
London
W1D 4TL
http://www.bincho.co.uk
Date visited: Wednesday 19^th January 2011
Attendees: Myself and The Baby
Price of meal: £13 for a one course lunch with drinks

So I was going to take the Baby to see The Book of the Dead at the British Museum and thought it would be nice to start with lunch. I have passed Bincho a few times and hear that it was an authentic Yakitori restaurant so suggested here. When we went into the restaurant there were only a few customers which was to be expected as it was a week day afternoon. We were given seats near the window but chose to sit at the bar so we could see the yakitori being cooked – the waitress thought we were weird!

The yakitori charcoal grill

Lunch:
Myself and The Baby: Leba (chicken liver), Uzuratamago (quail eggs), Yakitori don – a bowl of steamed rice with the following yakitori; negima (chicken and spring onion), tebasaki (chicken wings), sake (salmon), shiitake (shiitake mushroom) and aspara (asparagus) miso soup and chilled oolong tea.

Iced oolong tea - in double!

Chicken liver yakitori

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The  yakitori don and miso soup are part of the  set lunch meal. The chicken liver and quail eggs we order a la carte. The oolong tea is the first thing to arrive – nice and refreshing as expected. We are given square plates for the shared yakitori and a pot for the discarded bamboo skewers. The chicken livers are the first to arrive so we both tuck in. The chicken livers are very soft and dipped in a sauce that tasted like teriyaki. The yakitori don and quail eggs arrived soon after. The quail eggs are hard boiled and sprinkled with just a little salt and black sesame and taste very good. The rice on the yakitori don has been seasoned with soy sauce it is fat sushi rice rather than long grain and is well cooked and fluffy. The yakitori that came with the rice was well seasoned and all tasted very nice. My favourite yakitori, which came with the rice, was the salmon. None of the yakitori was over cooked and it wasn’t dry. I was very pleased with the food and enjoyed it a lot. The Baby also enjoyed the meal and said her favourite yakitori was the quail eggs. The miso soup was very good but I didn’t have much of it as there was so much food and I was getting full with the food. The amount of food we got just from the yakitori don was just right but the menu was so nice we decided to get more, our eyes were also bigger than our stomachs.

Miso soup, yakitori don (with a few pickle slices in the bowl) and quail egg yakitori, bamboo pot for sticks at the back

(Front to back) asparagus, mushroom, salmon, chicken and spring onion and chicken wings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We laughed a lot thinking about the super chain smoking guy in the yakitori bar in Tokyo as we checked out the desserts (it was funny but I guess you had to be there). I was quite impressed with the dessert list, Japanese twist to the western sweets, we particularly liked the soymilk doughnuts but we were too stuffed to eat more.

 

Before we leave I go to the toilet which are generally nice and modern but there are areas which are a bit shabby and I feel lets the restaurant down as it’s all very modern and seems well looked after.

In summary I really enjoyed Bincho – the food was good, the service was prompt (there were only a handful of customers). Coming for lunch was great value for money. I would certainly eat at Bincho again and this time make room to try some of their great sounding desserts.