Shinjuku City, Tokyo, Japan｜Chanko Kuroshio

Really good ex-sumo wrestler owned hotpot spot. Prices are reasonable for the sheer amount of food you get, the interior is decorated with sumo memorabilia, and the hosts are kind and attentive. Highly recommended.

The staff and the owner are super friendly and helpful. Mr. Kuroshio made the nabe himself. Accompanied with the pork, it was delicious and filling. They also had fugu fin wine, which some people in our group enjoyed more than others. Overall a great, fun experience if you’re looking for a warm, tasty meal.

Our group had a great time at the restaurant. We had never had Chanko Nabe before, but the purpose of our trip to Japan is to try new things. There was one wait staff who spoke almost perfect English, Honestly, she could have been from NY that’s how good her English was. This made it a lot easier to ask questions and she was able to explain a lot about the dishes we were getting served. They had one English menu, which is nice, but not an English drink menu, which honestly is not that important with tools like Google translate. Our group ended up getting the course with chicken in it (Can’t remember what it’s called). They also serve puffer fish here, so if you want to try puffer fish then this place is an option, our group was too afraid to try it this early in our journey. The server, after we had put our order in, immediately can back to ask if we had any food allergies. Which was an unexpected touch, but awesome touch. Our meal consisted our 4-5 courses and everyone was very tasty and very fresh. The food came out fast, each course was out as soon as the last one was finished, this was never a problem, because the staff was very attentive to making sure our group was basically done before serving the next dish. Our Chanko Nabe was huge and the variety of vegetables, meats and fish inside was crazy, even 30 mins into the meal we were discovering new ingredients in the bowl. The server recommended the Miso broth for our Chanko and she was right, our group raved about how good the broth was. We actually had a problem where we were consuming too much of the broth and not enough ingredients that, it was getting too low for all the ingredients. We highly recommend the Miso for anyone getting Chanko here. The meal ended with a small plate of fresh fruits for dessert, but we were so full from the rest of the food, we barely touched it. Honestly I’m embarrassed by how little of the Chanko we were able to eat because it was ginormous. You won’t be hungry after eating here. One of the members was a sumo fan so he recommended this place to the group. Given the owner of the restaurant is a former sumo wrestler, the decor is dedicated it, it’s very modern and would not look out of place as a fancy New York restaurant. All in all we highly recommend this place. The cost is a little higher then most restaurants we’ve eat but the amount of food makes it worth. I wish I had taken a photo of the mountain of food in the Chanko Nabe.