Dear Tina and Gabby,
Of course, you’re the first 2 people I miss when we went here…
Don.K! (pronounced by Japanese as donki and not what we think) is a YAKINIKU buffet restaurant near Ginza Street, Tokyo.
Gabby, remember when we dined at YAKIMIX at SM Mall of Asia few months back where you had fun time grilling our food on the spot ? Don.K! is like that; however I find our local version of Yakiniku more Pinoy-family-friendly. Why? The moment we’re on their long queue last Sunday and paid Y1000/pax (or PhP 500/pax; I and nurse Ruth were treated by our consultants 
) , the wait staff immediately warned us that we only have ONE HOUR TO EAT. That applies to every table, FYI.
Yes, dining experience at Don. K! is limited to an hour only. Unlike in Yakimix where we started our dinner then at 5:30 PM and ended at almost 10PM, hahaha! (Erratum : Don.K! lunch buffet starts 10 or 11am and ends in 3pm; we arrived at past 1pm and had a table reserved; we got in at around 2pm so we only got an hour left to eat. BUT IT’S NOT ONE HOUR DINING ONLY. Sorry).
But what can we do with Don.K! rules except to follow. Nevertheless, it was another remarkable gastronomic adventure!
On Don.K!’s spread…
Freshest & crisp greens with several dressings to choose from…
On my gluttonous plate …
I liked their potato salad; one of the best I’ve tasted so far.
Yakiniku literally means ‘grilled meat dishes’ ... Here are the large bowls of raw meat all waiting to be grilled…
I know Holy Week is just around the corner and we’ll miss eating all these until Easter.
There were also some noodle and rice dishes… I like the noodle with fresh bean sprouts… yummy!
Here’s what we got to grill…
Price for lunch buffet inclusive of drinks (sodas, juices, coffee) is Y1,000 but for dinner it’s a whopping Y3,000/pax! I don’t have idea what Don.K! serves for dinner but don’t you think it’s expensive compared to their lunch?
There were pork, chicken and fish to grill too but beef slices were on top of our list. However, I didn’t see any sushi or sashimi at Don.K!
One of the doctors got samples of what he thought as chicken skin; only to find out that it wasn’t; it’s some part of intestine, probably the omentum or something (read : chicharong bulaklak?).
Grilling time!
No Coke for me us, remember? So I settled with Minute Maid OJ ….
The beef slices after grilling were delicious! So tender I almost thought a friend’s statement about cows in Japan are given frequent massage to somehow ‘tenderized’ their meat (?) is true…
Although there was a chocolate fondue, and my colleagues enjoyed those huge mallows dipped in tasteful choco fountain, I favored peaches and pineapples for dessert!
Sarap ng lunch namin but again, it made me miss you more. Kain tayo buffet ulit pag-uwi ko.
I miss you both; I love you.
Tatay-doc.
wow the selection is extensive and that piece of meat you featured here is so well marbled that’s gonna be melting in your mouth.
i can’t believe they would put a limit as to how long you can eat your meal. that’s a hassle. is that limitation posted somewhere?
the one-hour-eating limit applies to every diners. despite that, believe me, the queue was so loooong; everybody had to wait for an hour to get in. we killed time by window shopping at the stores upstairs.
oh my! so many choices! what to choose is so hard! but harder still is eating everything in one hour!
yup! but nonetheless, i was satisfied; libre pa. hehehe.
yum yum! gusto ko na din magbuffet!
go, chyng! go!
oh men, the best-est! ^_^
one hour lang? eh pano doc pag kumakain ka pa tapos, tapos na ang 1hr, anu gagawin sayo? papaalisin ka ba? grabe pressure naman to sa pagkain haha!
a waiter will inform you politely that you have to leave.
the pressure, dyanie, was all part of it, i guess.
Parang ang sarap ng offerings nila….pero 1 hour time limit….it takes the fun out of eating because you still have to grill the meat, etc. Never heard of such a deal before but I guess it is OK for the price. I’ve been to all-you-can-eat buffets where they penalized you for leaving too much uneatened food in your plate but this is the first time I heard of a time limit. I’d like to give that a try because I usually do not spend more than an hour eating although I prefer to eat unhurried.
i was surprised to know that such restriction in dining exists in this big-hit resto and it’s not a big fuzz for most patrons (most diners who left their tables the last were pinoys, hehehe) nonetheless, i had sampled almost all i like from the spread.
what a big “oh my” daming food grabe kakakain ko pa lang ng lunch and im hungry again hehehe.
I could eat almost everything in the spread except those meat with marbled fat – it screams really high cholesterol!
doc this is like dining in seoul! the grilling then eat at once i mean
the food looks really yummy!