One of the decisions we’d made ahead of our trip to Japan was that we would take the boys with us to every meal we ate out. This meant we were not going to do meals that were either very expensive or which were likely to feature too many things that they might not eat—they have pretty wide-ranging palates compared to most Minnesotan kids their age but they’re not exactly omnivores. Both these things therefore ruled out high-end omakase and kaiseki meals. (And, in any case, I also did not want to spend any time chasing hard to get reservations at places where you need introductions and special handshakes and so forth.) But this is still Tokyo we’re talking about: an accessible sushi omakase at the affordable end of the market is still going to blow out of the water any comparably priced meal in the US and challenge much more expensive places. So it proved to be at our dinner at the Nihonbashi location of Manten-Sushi.

As far as I can make out, sushi omakases in Tokyo fall into the following price tiers:

1. Up to 10,000 yen
2. 10,000-20,000 yen
3. 20,000-30,000 yen
4. 30,000-40,000 yen
5. Fuck you

Manten-Sushi is therefore towards the high end of the lowest tier. Their omakase—and at dinner (and also at lunch if you’re making a reservation) that is all there is—currently costs 8800 yen. Or just about $58. In Los Angeles that will get you 10 pieces of standard nigiri at a decent neighbourhood place before drinks, tax and tip. What does it get you at Manten-Sushi? Considerably more.

But first, a few details. There are three locations of Manten-Sushi: in Marounouchi, in Hibiya and in Nihonbashi. All are bookable on the Tablecheck site. You can specify whether you want counter or table seats and mark any relevant dietary restrictions or preferences. I’d booked us in at the counter at the Nihonbashi location (accessible through the outside of the Coredo building) and noted that one member of the party (the younger boy) would prefer a lighter touch with the wasabi. They stagger dinner seatings with half the counter being re-seated while the other half completes their meal. When you arrive you wait outside until a staff member invites you in. For dinner, at least, reservations are necessary: each seating was packed while we were there and a few attempts at walk-ins were rebuffed politely.

I don’t know about the other two locations but the Nihonbashi location is pretty tight, space-wise. Indeed, it might have been the tightest of all the sushi restaurants we visited on this trip. It has 12 seats at a counter and eight more at two four-top booths (I think there might also be a small private room). The counter though is the place to be. You are very close to the action and everything happening on the other side is clearly visible. And the chefs are personable and happy to describe things. They also have pretty good English as it happens. All in all, a good place for non-Japanese speaking sushi enthusiasts who are not looking to spend a lot of money but still want to eat a very good meal. And that is what we got.

What did this very good meal include? On the night it featured 26 courses—most, of course, were bite-sized. Here is the progression:

1. A tiny bowl of delicate umami-laden clam broth.
2. A bowl of cold, marinated seaweed.
3. An impossibly thin slice of suzuki/sea bass sashimi.
4. A chunk of Hokkaido scallop/hotate, which we were encouraged to eat with a small dab of freshly grated wasabi.
5. A thin slice of lightly seared katsuo/skipkack.
6. A few pieces of lightly pickled bitter gourd as a palate cleanser. (The boys shocked us by eating these.)
7. Lightly steamed abalone. Each diner received an entire abalone.
8. Kanpachi/amberjack nigiri.
9. Chawanmushi with crab.
10. Boiled turban shell sea snail served in the shell.
11. Special maki with matcha sauce. (I failed to ask what the components were.)
12. Isaki/grunt nigiri.
13. A bowl of ikura/salmon roe don, featuring seaweed-marinated ikura.
14. A crisp, flat sardine cracker.
15. Ama ebi/sweet shrimp nigiri.
16. A cube of house-made creamy tofu.
17. Akami/marinated bluefin tuna nigiri.
18. Chutoro/medium fatty bluefin tuna nigiri.
19. Pickled eggplant as a palate cleanser. (The boys shocked us further by eating this as well—though they didn’t enjoy it as much as the bitter gourd.)
20. Torched otoro/fatty bluefuntuna belly nigiri.
21. Murasaki uni/sea urchin roe with rice in an open sheet of nori.
22. Negitoro/minced raw tuna with green onions handroll.
23. Miso soup with clams (the same clams that had been used for the opening broth).
24. Anago/conger eel nigiri.
25. Tamago/egg cake.
26. A chunk of watermelon to end.

With a few exceptions, there was not very much happening by way of intricate or esoteric preps—and the fish/shellfish selection also fell mostly into the standard end of the spectrum—but it was all very good anyway. Indeed, almost every single course was excellent and a few were outstanding. In the latter category were the scallop, the abalone, the chawanmushi with crab, the marinated ikura bowl and the murasaki uni. The marinated ikura bowl was probably the best thing we ate on the entire trip and the chawanmushi was not far behind. It goes without saying that this was the best of our sushi meals on the trip. They use red vinegar for the sushi rice here, by the way.

For a closer look at everything we ate, launch the excessive slideshow below. Scroll down to find out how much the meal came to with drinks and for a few more thoughts on the whole experience.

The younger boy had a glass of grapefruit juice and the missus and I shared two small carafes of sake. With these added to the bill, the total for the four of us came to 38,280 yen or $260. In Los Angeles that is how much you would pay per head for this meal before drinks, tax and tip—and there are only a few places where it would be as good. In other words, coming from the US, this is insane quality (and quantity) for the price. Add on the easygoing nature of the whole experience—from the ease of booking to the affable chefs—and it’s hard not to recommend Manten-Sushi.

And I do want to stress the ambience for those eating with young people as we were: it is the opposite of stuffy. The young chef who was taking care of our end of the counter (he’s photographed with permission) was friendly and funny without making the experience feel like a carnival. When I asked if I could record the torching of the otoro, he all but placed it under my nose as he did it. When one of the Japanese women next to us exclaimed on seeing it, he took another piece over for her to record as well. The boys were over the moon after the meal and that you can’t put any price on.

Manten-Sushi will not score you bromakase points but if you’re not looking to spend a lot of money at a temple of sushi, it will almost certainly fit your bill. We’ll be back on our next visit to Tokyo—when we will probably also try out a place in the next tier.

Alright, there are only three more reports to come from Tokyo: two in genres not yet covered and one more sushi meal. If all goes well, I should have all of those up by the end of the week.