Mamster For planning your trip, my suggestion is that you visit Tokyo Food Page and Tokyo Q(at both sites you will have to do a little bit navigation before you hit the restaurant reviews). Both sites are in English, and has an extensive collection of reviews. Tokyo food Page's restaurant list is more extensive, where as tokyoq has more in-depth reviews. I have found both sites to be fairly reliable in their reviews(I am not associated with either of the sites). Tokyoq has a review of an Eel Restaurant for this months review which you indicated was on the agenda of things you wanted to do. For Department store food halls, one tip if you really want to cheap it. All department stores close one day mid week(Monday-Thursday), so visit just before close on the day before their mid-week close. They are offering steep discounts, since it will be two days before they can sell their food-stuff again. All the department stores listed previously are excellent, but I would also like to add Isetan in Shinjuku to the list. The Takashimaya branch in Shinjuku used to have a Fugu counter with live fish where the fish was sliced before your eyes. The fish should be in season end of November, definitely worth trying (at least you can say you had it and survived). Another suggestion is to go to Ameyoko between Ueno and Akihabara(The electronics district). This is a more down-to-earth version of the department store food hall. For sushi, I always thought that Sushisay in Tsukiji was the best place for visitors. The fish is of very good quality, the price is reasonable and it is housed in an old wooden building next to the fish market which adds to the ambiance. Yakitori (Grilled Chicken), eating under the rail-road tracks in Yurakucho(near Ginza) is quite an experience. There are several vendors, all of roughly the same quality. It was suggested to pick up Tonkatsu at a department store. Alternatively, go to Maisen in Omote-sando. They have a file of "Black Pork" (which is their signature dish) that is just unbelievable, tender and tasty for about 3,000 yen if I remember correctly. It's a shame that Ninnikuya has gone downhill(as indicated in this thread), it was definitely one of my favourite places in Tokyo. If you have the money to spend, try Arakawa in Shinbashi (near Ginza) for Teppan-yaki. It will be expensive, but I would be very surpised if you did not come out of the restaurant claiming that this was by far the best steak you ever had. I have yet to find a steak outside of Japan that comes even near the best steaks in Japan. Chanko-nabe in Ryogoku. "Sumo"-cuisine. More of a been there, done that experience, but you could be eating with real wrestlers. For Sake you can visit the Japanese Sake Center in Ginza for some tasting. Most department stores will also have sake tastings. I would stick to Japanese places. Tokyo has some outstanding international restaurants, but with four days you are better off focusing on the local stuff (Even sticking to Japanese you will barely scratch the surface of what Tokyo has to offer). Tokyo has it's fair share of medicocre and/or over-priced restaurants and my uggestion is to go to places that you have done prior research on. Eating alone should not be a problem, especially at the places that offers a counter(which is where you want to be anyway). Since you are a foreigner, at night-time people will be eager to strike a conversation with you after they have had a few sakes and beers. Warnings: A lot of places do not accept credit cards, so please come armed with cash. A lot of places will have menus only in Japanese with pictures or plastic replicas of the dishes in the windows (If you want to bring your own plastic replica food, head to Kappa-bashi which is a half-mile stretch of shops selling restaurant supplies). The magic word is Omakase (chef's choice), which is ususally the best way to go anyway in better restaurants. Also, not every restaurant will have English speaking staff (I would say most of them don't). I would not be too discouraged by this, there will usually be a guest at the restaurant who speaks English willing to help out. Enjoy your trip. Disclaimer I left Tokyo two years ago, so some of the info might be out of date