Good gyoza are an amazing thing. One night I went for a wander and found a particularly good gyoza place, although to be honest the only reason I ducked in was a) they had a huge tiger on the side of the building and b) my brain was tired of translating Japanese and the restaurant’s name was in English. It may have been the best decision of the whole trip. We ate four plates of gyoza on the waiter’s recommendation, plus the tomato and avocado salad. The salad had us in raptures – topped with fresh cress and corriander, the avocado and tomato chunks were doused in an oily corriander dressing – we licked those plates clean. Seriously, seriously good salad. The first two plates of gyoza were equally amazing – each plate had six dumplings – one normal-sized the other giant. The giant gyoza (called bukkuri gyoza) were the pick of the menu – packed with pork, crunchy sprouts and cabbage, they were to die for served with the corriander, onion and chilli condiment sauces. We weren’t as keen on the green soup gyoza which came third, but the yuzu gyoza on the final plate were refreshing and incredibly tasty. We dined here twice on this trip and I will most definitely be back.
Tiger Gyoza Hall, Hiroo 5-14-2, Tamachi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Japan (in the backstreets opposite Keio University East Gate)
