Tokyo Japanese Restaurant

We came here because other reviewers said they were knowledgeable but in my experience they are not. At least not the staff that was there on my visit.

I said I was gluten free, and the server said it's ok, we have gluten free soy sauce. That's a good start, but there are a lot of potential points of gluten in Japanese food, like imitation crab made with wheat as a binder, tempura flakes, wheat starch in the wasabi, other sauces that contain wheat or use soy sauce as a base, etc. so I asked which rolls would be safe. The server (maybe owner?) pointed to a few rolls in the menu, some of which had eel sauce. I said I couldn't have it because it contains soy sauce. Then she said I could have anything that didn't have the eel sauce (now I'm thinking - what about tempura flakes? What about sauces and ingredients not specifically listed on the menu?) Feeling less confidant, I decided to study the menu and find the plainest rolls I could.

While I looked over the menu, cross referencing on my phone to check for potential gluten, We were checked on a few times by different people. Each time they asked if I was ready to order, and each time I said I was trying to figure out what was safe and didn't contain gluten or wheat. Each time they pointed out "safe" rolls that actually had gluten ingredients like tempura or soy sauce. When I further explained I couldn't eat those options because they contained wheat, they got disgruntled, pointed to some random section of the menu, and said all this is good.

We asked if we could order a particular roll without tempura flakes and were told yes. When we did, we were told that roll didn't have tempura flakes anyway. I pointed out that the menu description said it does have tempura flakes, so she made sure to tell the kitchen not to add them. So does this roll typically come with tempura but the staff doesn't know? Or does it not, and the menu is wrong? Either way, I don't love how uncertain I feel about what ingredients are in which dishes.

Anyway, long story short, none of this instilled much confidence. In my experience the staff was not familiar with gluten or which of their rolls had gluten containing ingredients. The menu is not marked, and they don't seem to have any standardized training to know which dishes are gluten free. The gluten free soy sauce comes in a refillable glass decanter so there's no way to verify someone didn't fill it up with regular soy sauce.

If I weren't Celiac, I would eat here again for sure. And to be fair, their menu does not make any claims about allergies or being able to accommodate gluten free diets. I went here based on other reviews and it didn't work out for me.

Unfortunately, I do have Celiac, and since it wasn't clear that this restaurant could accommodate my needs without a lot of room for error and miscommunication, I probably won't go back.

Celiac friendly?

No

Sushi is available GF. Be sure to say you are gluten intolerant and they will bring GF soy sauce to dip in. Good traditional norimaki sushi.

Owner was knowledgeable about GF items. Many sushi items are available GF and GF soy sauce was provided. Very tasty!