Local Eats Japan

Santon is located in the middle of Japan’s biggest China Town, and I think it is the best restaurant that they have here. 

It is off of the main drag a little bit, and you have to walk through this kind of narrow alley to get there, but don’t be alarmed! It is Japan after all. 

I assume that at some point Santon had a “1st” location, but they don’t anymore and have decided to keep the “2nd” in the name, so there is no need to get confused. 

Santon has 3 stories to it, with the seating all consisting of tables. 

Depending on your party size they will decide which floor you go on as some are bigger than others, so they may make you wait a bit and have people behind you go first. 

Santon has a really good reputation for people who have been to China Town here, so naturally it gets busy (especially on the weekend). 

A tip to avoid this however, is to go a bit after lunch time because the rush should have died down a bit. One thing about Japan is that the people are very time regimented, so even 30 minutes after the 12-1 lunch period can make a night or day difference. 

When you are seated, if it is a busy time and the waitresses are running around, then you will have to get their attention, and generally this is done by yelling out “sumimasen” or excuse me, but I think if you try and get eye contact with them and raise your hand tall enough then it should be ok!

As for the food, everything is very good. But, I definitely think that the star of the show is their “sui-gyoza”, or boiled gyoza. 

Generally gyoza are pan-fried and having them boiled was a first for me, but they were incredible (though the visual appeal of them is severely lacking lol…)

In boiling them, I felt that it allowed me to focus more on the taste of the dough because it made it a bit more chewy than usual, and obviously didn’t have any crispiness to it either. 

But their normal yaki-gyoza also use the same dough and filling as the, so naturally they are also very good!

Additionally to this, the Xiao Long Bao (Shoronpo in Japanese) and the ebi-chili were also fantastic. 

The Long Bao had a really good size to them, and a ton of juice on the inside. 

They had vinegar on the table to eat with both this and the gyoza, as well as soy sauce and a chili oil. 

The ebi-chili are essentially just huge, plump fully peeled shrimp that are drenched in a sweet chilli sauce. 

I have never tried the original Chinese dish so I don’t know how the taste compares, but I know the Japanese version of it is at the very least, delicious and pairs extremely well with white rice! 

Whatever dish you order here, it is delicious and I don’t want to say authentic to China per-say, but certainly authentic to the Japanese style of Chinese cooking!

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