Tokyo Subway

I have had a LOT of ramen in my life (including in Tokyo) and did not have high expectations for this place but the shoyu ramen was surprisingly satisfying, especially the texture of the noodles and the pork belly. It’s a hole in a wall with mostly counter seating so you can see them make all the food. Service is super fast and it’s right across the street from my office so I will definitely be back next time I’m craving ramen, which is all the time.

I love this place!
The food is excellent.
It a family place and worth the stopping by.

Don’t get anything raw here.

This place is like having dinner with your parents, if they were down at the heels, Japanese, and addicted to wheel of fortune. Don’t eat the sushi (which should be obvious). Get anything that gets nice and hot before you eat it and all will be well.

Tokyo Subway is Memory Lane for me. Lot’s of good times here and a special place for me. The fish is fresh and staff is very kind and attentive. We always sat at the bar and the sushi chef has remembered us for nearly ten years. My order is typically, tempura appetizer, hamachi nigiri, sake nigiri, and some sort of roll, such as the San Jose roll which is pretty much a California roll with shrimp instead of crab. The tempura is especially good. Nice people too.

Weak. Slow service, limited selection of sushi, uncomfortable seating areas. Definitely not going back and wouldn’t recommend no matter what kind of food you’re craving.

This is the BEST sushi place in Menlo Park… if you want to get food poisoning.
Simply put: This isn’t sushi.
I had bones in my fish (a first for me and I’ve had sushi dozens of times all over the world). Skin on my salmon. Teeny portions (thank god) AND a crazy price tag. I’d rather pay $ 30 at the McDonalds across than see sushi disgraced like this ever again.
If you have to go here, stick with the cooked foods and rolls. Avoid anything raw if you can — especially the lettuce/​salad, sashimi, nigiri — unless you want to be in the bathroom all night.

This is my favorite lunch place in Menlo Park. First, it is run by actual Japanese folks, who bring in their culture. Second, I am a vegetarian, and they always accommodate my needs by offering vegetarian versions of most of their dishes. If you are a vegetarian, you can ask for veg Miso Ramen, or vegetable don in spicy teriyaki sauce.
Third, the place has a hole in the wall feel, and is very conducive for conversations. Fourth, the folks who run this place have an air of graciousness, and it makes you feel welcome. Fifth, you do feel like you have stepped out of Menlo Park and the Bay Area and into a tiny authentic Tokyo joint. These are the reasons behind my 5-​star rating. This place is about much more than just the food.

I had takeout sushi and the quality was about on par with sushi you could buy from a grocery store. I’m talking about cheap, «I’m craving sushi I must have it!» rolls where even though every fiber of your being tells you you shouldn’t buy sushi here, you get it. And inevitably you are disappointed.
That would be fine, actually, if the prices at Tokyo Subway weren’t two times more expensive than they needed to be. There’s a place for cheap sushi in today’s world, but this sushi was not cheap. I guess you’re in Menlo Park so what can you expect, but you’re probably better off trying some of the other sushi joints if you can help it. I also see that other items here (not sushi) are good, so you could try those items too.
I do have to say though, the atmosphere is nice, and the (family-​owned?) staff were very nice as well. It’s a very serviceable place, if you don’t have particularly high sushi-​taste.

Great service, very relaxed, chill, great smiles, The food was hella good. I loved all the sushi’s. The sweet carrots were really good too. Oh and the pot stickers are excellent. I am gonna come back here a million more times.

Had spicy chicken don and sushi combo lunch specials. Both were ok. Environment was nice, pretty low key. 老闆娘非常nice :)

Location: Menlo Park, close to an intersection with El Camino.
Ambiance: The doorway you enter has a cloth covering sometimes seen in Asian restaurants with a split down the middle for you to pass through. Small, simple restaurant that’s narrow, more like a galley style with a long bar/​counter with stools to sit on. The stoves/​cooking and preparation area is open and in full view of customers who sit at the bar. There’s little to nothing on the white walls. The restaurant is quiet. The only sounds are of other customers or of the chefs that are preparing orders. It’s refreshing to have such a simple setup where you know exactly what state your food is in before, during, and after it’s prepared. There’s an honesty in this style of open-​view preparation that’s just nice.
Service: The staff is appropriately small for a small business. There were 2 chefs and 1 waitress working with 4 – 6 customers at the time I was there. The chefs didn’t make a peep while we were there, they were very focused on their preparation, taking good care of the food and not seeming flustered or rushed. Cooking areas were organized and clean. The waitress was very friendly and helpful with suggestions on items if asked. Service with a smile. She was also appropriately attentive, checking on us once and a while to make sure we were okay. There was no waiting long periods to get anyone’s attention.
Food: Food was good. We only tried the different ramen options they had. I personally enjoyed the ramen a lot. But I would say it wasn’t a miraculous experience or anything. I did like their garnish of corn kernels on top. It was something different, and it added a nice sweetness I’m not used to. And of course, they had the halved boiled egg in there that was so tasty, with all that flavored that got cooked into the white portion and the yolk which turns on even more creamy when sitting in the soup. There were only a couple of things I noticed as somewhat of a con. One was while glancing over at other customers’ dishes– some dishes just looked underwhelming. I don’t mind dishes being simple. But some of the dishes looked very sparse. So I would say the food appeal/​design would do wonders for the allure of their dishes. The second was the limited dessert options. There are no dessert options listed. When asked about dessert, we found out they only offer a few flavors of ice cream, and that is the extent of their dessert. I’ve forgotten all they flavors that they offered, but one was green tea.
Return factor: Yes, I would go back again. I would go back for the ramen and perhaps to try some of their other dishes.

J’ai été plutôt déçue par ce lieu.
Avec les différents commentaires, je m’attendais à quelque chose de chouette. Ça a pourtant bien commencé avec l’intérieur du restaurant: un long bar, avec derrière les plaques de cuissons, des journaux japonais dans un coin et très peu d’employer. Un bon vieux restau’ comme je les apprécies.
Première surprise négative: la pauvreté de la carte concernant les Special Roll. Mais on arrive à trouver notre bonheur et on prend à emporter. L’odeur qui sort de nos petites boîtes est un délice et on a hâte de pouvoir manger tout ça !
Mais quelle déception après !
— la chair de crabe (si c’est bien ça à l’intérieur) des «San Francisco rolls» (plutôt connu en France sous le nom de California Roll je crois) était vraiment sèche ce qui rendait l’ensemble pas si bon que ça.
— les spécials rolls étaient bon, ceux aux thons ou aux poulpes n’ont pourtant rien d’exceptionnel avec simplement du concombre à l’intérieur et aucune sauce sur le dessus.
Moi qui voulait me faire un bon festin de Roll comme je les adore … Ça né mérite que deux étoiles pour ma part mais je tiens tout de même à préciser que je n’ai pas goûter aux autres plats !
Donc 2 étoiles pour la qualité des Roll et Special Roll mais pour le reste, je né peux rien dire :)

If you order fried oysters and nabeyaki udon, you will be mistaken for Japanese or someone who lived there. I know I was asked about it since it is such a comfort food type of order. What Can I say? I understand the food. Pretty decent on both fronts and very easy choices to make if you dont want something fancy. The food is no frills and the service is very nice. 3.5 stars

I’ve been here several times for lunch, since it was close to my workplace. The place is small, and I find the atmosphere cozy, authentic, and the service is very nice. There only seems to be one chef and one staff during lunch, but they manage the tables very well.
I really enjoy their hot ramen in miso broth. Their udon is ok. The gyoza is delicious.
I would definitely return again when I am in the area.

I like it because it is unique and reliable local Japanese food. They have a counter you can sit at too.
Like:
Service
Green tea
Cute place feels cozy
Teriyaki chicken
Husband likes the sushi
Great price
Don’t like:
TV is always on. This really bothers me. It can be loud and/​or distracting.

Tokyo Subway is a tiny sushi place I go to mostly for the intimate experience. This place is small with fast, polite service. The food is good, not outstanding. I like the seaweed salad.
Consider Cold Stone for ice cream afterwards.

Tokyo Subway is a very small, unpretentious Japanese restaurant near the corner of El Camino and Santa Cruz in Menlo Park’s downtown.
We stopped here for a quick bite late in the afternoon. The restaurant wasn’t crowded, a couple tables were available plus the long counter with stools. I ordered a couple rolls and my son had the gyoza. Prices were reasonable ($ 3ish for a small California roll) and the service was fast and friendly. Yes the rolls were tiny, but they tasted fresh and hit the spot. My son’s gyoza was fine, nothing extraordinary.
So if you’re wanting some quick, affordable Japanese food or if you don’t want to wait for a table elsewhere downtown, check this place out.

A very traditional tiny restaurant… no fancy sushi rolls here, just the very basics, and they have noodle soups, tempura, tonkatsu, etc. Fresh fish, good food, moderate quantities.
My mom loves this place because of the extreme simplicity of the sushi rolls and the fact that you can sit at the bar and watch them make /​cook everything out in the open. And because it’s a small independent business. I guess this a review on behalf of my mom. I will add that I would much prefer eating here than over at Akasaka… the quality here is a lot better and I enjoy the total unpretentiousness of this place. I’ll leave it at that!

Reasonable price with matching food.
I got the small salad and the rainbow roll.
But watching them cook everything, which includes the unsavory frying they do, isn’t the best. But that’s mostly because it looks grungy. I’m sure if it looked bright and bleached it would actually be kind of cool to see.
They had the channel on the television set to the Japan tsunami news. And they had a collection box for tsunami funds in the front, with some cookies by the side.
A just an a-​okay stop for dinner.

One step into this place shows that it is not exactly the place to get raw fish. So I proceeded to order some udon. To my surprise, the udon was EXCELLENT. The soup base was amazing. The udon noodle itself was somewhat flat and not squarish round like most udon. Very good shrimp tampura and excellent chicken meat.
All the separate items were done very well for things that goes into the udon. I was very happy with this noodle and instantly thought that I would come here whenever I want to get my udon fix. Four stars!