This shop at the entrance of the Ueno Park (a hotspot for the mesmerising sakura in spring) has hundreds of year of history specialising in eel rice served in a delicated rectangular lacquer utensil.

The service was very good with some jolly enthusiastic middle aged ladies in traditional kinomos taking care to your every needs. The interior decor is not particularly sumptuous with quite crammed furniture which is typical of Tokyo, however, cleanliness and tidiness are scrupulouly observed which are in the psyche of every Japanese I think.

I ordered a medium size eel rice which came in about 10 minutes time, it was served with a small bowl of kimchi, a soup and a cup of Chinese tea.

The rice was not very impressive, its fragrance was not as appealing as ordinary Thai rice, it was soft to the extent in line with the eel meat that they formed a homogeneous enjoyable mix inside your mouth.

The two big pieces of eel were unquestionably fresh, and so overwhelmingly redolent with the fatty fishy aroma, there were tiny little bones amid the eel meat that inadvertently impart the variation of textures. A bottle of herb which the waitress made enticement to me, when sprinkled onto the eel, though tasted bit exotic (Arabic) it got along with the eel very well.

The kimchi sadly was only a small bowl of it definitely worth mentioning, the veggies were crunchy, would not be very salty as you would encounter in street stalls, there were even two short brown trunks of fresh ginseng which tasted so refreshing.

Considering the price, it is a place that one should expect to pay for their services above the foods, because I actually found eel rice with similar quality in less renowned eateries in Tokyo, though with less salubrious environment, are much more budget friendly.