Midnight Diner

How does one seek solace and discover salvation when things go wrong and their faith and hope dwindles? Some find God, some find nature, and for us at Restaurant Fiction, we find it in a bowl of soba noodles and dashi inside Shinjuku’s Midnight Diner.

Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, is a big city within a bigger city with some of the brightest lights on earth. The city 10-exes Las Vegas’ output when it comes to a sensory overload experience with its pachinko parlors, piss alleys, grilled street meat stands, electronic stores, Don Quixote pharmacies, LCD billboards, bars upon bars mixed with karaoke bars, and vice for the tourist and the local alike. It’s easy to get caught up in superficial cheap thrills.

For deep developmental work, you have to go inside the tiny 12-seat izakaya, tucked away in a back alley.

You enter, shut up, bow your head to the head chef, aka, The Master, out of respect, and trust the experience.

If you want to talk, a who’s who of corporate salarymen, radio DJs, taxi drivers, drag queens, prostitutes, yakuza, the young, the old, the famous and the forgotten will converse back. 

If you want someone to listen, The Master has open office hours from midnight to 7.

And if you’re looking for answers, just tilt your head down to the dish; smell the fragrant flavors, see the ingredients and garnishes intricately placed in just the right places so that every bite gives a true whirlwind of sweet, sour, salty, and umami. Every spoonful and slurp might not give you the answer you’re looking for, but it’ll feed your soul and give you the fuel to keep going.

NOTE: With no reservations or dress code, the Midnight Diner only has two rules, the menu only consists of 1 ever-changing item but if you crave something else and The Master has leftover ingredients to make it or you bring the ingredients yourself, he’ll make your special request possible. Personally, Restaurant Fiction recommends going to the Midnight Diner on New Year Eve. He serves perfectly steamed king crab.