Bincho Yakitori
our comments
Bincho makes good use of wood throughout and initial impressions are of elegant simplicity and warmth. This, linked with a stunning uninterrupted view across the Thames. brings together the ingredients for a very stylish restaurant in this huge loft type space on the second floor of the Oxo Tower.
The menu can perhaps best be described as Japanese ‘tapas’; offering individual portions, most of which are small skewers providing the diner with two or three tasty mouthfuls of an interesting array of dishes. There are some larger individual plates and some that are better suited for sharing, particularly the starters and salads. Most of the cooked dishes are flame-grilled by chefs in full sight of the diners and there are some notable deep fried options.
We started with kimchee, a dish of tangy, hot Korean pickles, a delicious Mehikare, (white fish in seven spice batter), Ebi-shinjyo age - prawn cakes coated with noodles and fried until crisp and light, giving a wonderful sensation in the mouth as you bite into them, and a dish of edamame (soya beans). Our waitress suggested that we have beer with our starters and, as novices in this style of eating we took her advice, each having a half pint of Asahi, a clean, lager style beer that was very pleasant. After our starters we moved on to share a dish of Kaiso To Sashimi. This was a dish of salad leaves with salmon and squid, the squid had a fresh creamy texture and the salad was beautifully dressed.
The came the Yakitori and Kushiyaki lists: particular highlights were sori, (chicken ‘oysters’), tasty juicy nuggets, iagamo, (lovely pieces of duck with spring onion), honetsuki gyu, full flavoured pieces of beef rib, cooked medium rare; buta, divine little kebabs of pork belly, not at all fatty; tiger prawns, cooked in their shell, and tomatobacon, streaky bacon wrapped around a cherry tomato. Our waitress suggested we have Sake with this selection – we had the Kasumitsuru, which was served ceremonially: it complemented the food very well.
A sweeter sake, Takara Nigori and a glass of Kurokame (a sweet potato Shochu) accompanied our desserts of a spicy banana layer cake coupled with creamy green tea ice cream, and sake poached pear with sesame biscuits and ice cream. Both were excellent.
Service at Bincho was attentive and well-informed, the staff were charming and very helpful. They have a wide selection of sake and shochu, and a reasonable selection of wines starting from £13.50 a bottle, several served by the glass. With great food, stylish surroundings, helpful staff and uninterrupted views across the Thames, Bincho is an excellent place to eat and a lovely experience.
akandpa - October 2007
your comments review this restaurant and win a bottle of champagne
This is a great place for a cheeky lunch if you work in the area or have out of towners visiting - quick, efficient, great concept, lovely views. A tip is to go for the grilled sardines or mackerel as they're huge, delicious and cost peanuts. Far far far better than the abysmal Oxo Tower restaurant and brasserie or the medocre Tamesa on the same floor.
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Rich
Overall rating 
Food 7 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 8
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
First off, the location and atmosphere is lovely, great views of the river and perfect lighting.
Don't come here expecting a traditional meal or one plate of food. The idea is to order a few little dishes at a time to share and have as snacks with your drinks. Particularly recommended is the aubergine, pork ribs and sea bream.
The range of sake is also excellent and delicious and is the perfect accompaniment.
Servive is freindly and discreet and although it is slightly overpriced for what it is , the vlaue of the whole experience is good.
An excellent restaurant and one of my favourite places to eat in London. Highly recommended.
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Mr Big
Overall rating 
Food 9 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 6
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
reasonable food, quite authentic, all in it works out at about 35quid and even then u're not splashing out keeping an eye on prices. despite the wood used for decor it did feel cold inside - ie it was definitely chilly. The tables are also badly laid out so only half of a group get to see the river view (one facing the river, the other with their back turned to it) - Oxo tower restaurant at the top has the better table layout.
Nice change from sushi, but don't expect fireworks
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ginoT - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 5
Saturday, March 08, 2008
I choose Bincho Yakitori as it had nice River views!. Go there in the evening as London by night is very romantic and perfect for our Anniversary (though it might not suite everyones e.g. no candle / flowers on table needed for the romantic touch).
It is in the same building as the OXO tower, without the silly price tag of other restaurants in the buiding.
The restaurant is new and am told only opened four months, so everything is new!
This is a Japanese place, but don't go there expecting wagamama style Noodles Soup, Sushi or Tempora. This place specialises in grilled (BBQ) foods.
The menu consists of starters, salads, skewers and bigger skewers dishes and rice dishes etc....
When you read the menu, you will see that a chicken skewer costs £1.70 each, but you have to order minimum two skewers (3 chicken pieces per skewer). As for the Sea Bream (fish), that is one piece per skewer. They do have adventourous stuff on the menu, so if you like chicken gibblets or grilled chicked skin on skewers they can accomodate you! They have a nice selection of salads too. (the menu is available on this web site...)
They have a selections for vegetarians too!
It was hard to pick out what was good from the menu...... So we ordered :-
Miso Soup
Tofu Kimchee - this was average (but worth trying)
Chicken Breast Skewers - this was excellent
Sea Bream Skewers - this was excellent
Fried Rice with Veg - this was average (but needed)
Sardines (Grilled) - this was excellent (About £4.60)
A word of warning if your order the sardines, don't order with someone who is squeemish. When it came, it was 'whole' fish including the eyes and tail!. When my wife saw it, she insisted I double wash my mouth in the bathroom after eating it!! This was really funny, to see her squeemish!. But the grilled sardines where excellent!! (and the presentation was superb, it came on a green slab of stone with rock salt by the side and a lemon slice!).
Don't be afraid to order multiple starters and main meals (as you get smaller portions)...
As for the desert we had the banana cake and green tea ice cream. And the banana cake was heavenly!. The ice cream was unusual... green tea flavour.
My wife did say she would want to come back for the desert alone!
I did look and the other tables and their food looked amazing, so there is a probably a lot more on the menu that looks good, but hard to tell what is good, as this is a new style of food I have not tried before!.
The only (minor) bad thing was that as I ordered the Miso soup, all the other food started to arrive at the same time.... I would have liked a few more minutes to finish my Miso soup before the other skewer dishes came - which meant the skewer dishes were getting cold.... (or perhaps waitress should have asked if we wanted everything together etc... ). But I think Wagamama brings food in any order ... so it must be a Japanese thing?.
The staff were all Japanese smilling, giggling and eager to please.
I would recommend everyone go there at least once, this is a good place to try something different! (I still prefer my Bento box and Sushi, but this place had something different to offer and great if you are bored of the usual cuisine...)
Our bill came to £37 for two people inc service (soft drinks only, no wines/saki and one desert to share).
The restaurant is also good if you bring a Group together (and this restaurant is huge). There is no set menu, but you could always agree somethign with the restaurant....
The Lifts at the back of the building that take you to the second floor (don't take the stairs....).
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Overall rating 
Food 8 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 8
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
If honest I am really surprised with Bincho and the authencity of its food. Everything I had, from the skewers to the dessert and drinks, tasted fabulous just like in Japanese isakaya places. The atmosphere is splendid and the decoration gives a warm welcome with its sophisticated wooden columns and japanese writings on the walls. The service was also great and the waitresses very helpful when we asked about some of dishes on the menu. As a big sake drinker I must say I found one the best selection of sakes in London. Good value, great food, great service. I'll come back again and again and again!
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Nina
Overall rating 
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Have been meaning to get here for some time now and so pleased that I finally did! Booked a table on Friday for the same evening and asked if possible for a table with a view of the Thames. We were given a great table facing the waterfront, just as requested.
The staff were attentive and polite. Being Japanese-Canadian and my friend who is Japanese, we were impressed with the extensive authentic menu.
It's a perfect way to try different Japanese food (people tend to think it's all sushi and sashimi). I love a place that specialises in a particular cuisine, like it is in Japan. Grilled skewers or kushiyaki is a perfect way to sample a variety of grilled delights - especially loved the cherry tomato wrapped in bacon and pork belly - one skewer at a time.
Prices are completely reasonable, if you take an average of 5-7 skewers each it makes a whole meal. The wine list is decent but the focus is on sake and shochu. We had a bottle of wine and about a dozen skewers, chilled spinach starter (ohitashi) for 50GBP for two.
Would be fun to have larger parties too. Maybe fun to sit in front of the open kitchen next time, to see them preparing everything.
Definitely going back!
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LoveGoodFood - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 8
Saturday, October 06, 2007
This place is great. Everything about it is right up there with the best places in London. The food is varied and pretty much everything I had was delicious. You have a load of small dishes, eat them then order again, and you'll be ordering until you burst, and probably go for the lamb and pork belly with every round like me.
Their sochu and sake list is extensive and all the ones I tasted were great. Their chocolate dessert was one of the best things I've ever tasted. Service was excellent, and a few little things add to it, like having all the sakes explained and seeing one of the waiters check a wine glass before taking it to a table. You notice things like that.
The view is great as well, right over the thames, looks great when it gets darl. Only vaguely bad thing was that they asked us to leave the table and go to the bar at the end, but as we'd been there for two and a half hours then that's fair enough!
I'll be going here all the time from now on, and everyone else should.
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Stephen H - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 8
Monday, September 17, 2007
Well, at first this restaurant really looks somthing like authentic japanese restaurant with promising quality food and service.
But, in real life is quite different.
Me and my Girlfriend arrived at the restaurant at 7pm, we were greeted by lady in nice long asian costume. The atmosphere is very asian with all that lights above our heads.
The waitress took our order with palm pc (not everyday experience). At first glance to the Menu it surprised me with the prices (prices starts from £1.20), but looking more acurate I realised that this is price per "Mouth-sized" dish (1piece snack).
We waited for about 25 minutes until first dishes landed on our table. And it seemed that they brought wrong order to us (quite unexpected in the place with such advanced technology) well what it really surprised me that the waitress took the dishes from our table and put them on the table next to us for other customers.
The names of the dished sound very exotic, but the taste is not that good as would have expected from the restaurant with the prices and the place like this.
after long snacking we ordered for desert ice cream. Thought would be nice to try japanese ice cream. Well here it shocked me even more when waitress brought our desert on the table, the ice cream were already melted (imagine plate full of melted ice cream) I asked what is this and the waitress told me this is your ice cream. I replied that this Ice cream already melted and i would like the new one and she replied that in our kitchen is very hot and she cannot help me with anything. So i called the manager and surprisingly the manager relied the same thing. So we ended up with (melted) desert.
At the end of our "dinner" (snacking actually) we received bill for £75.
And still left the restaurant with empty stomach and ruined date.
Do NOT recomend to go there.
Next time will try other restaurant in OXO Tower
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Jack Hudson
Overall rating 
Food 2 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 2
Monday, September 03, 2007
Went for lunch on thursday, taking advantage of the 50% off the food bill offer.
We were greeted promptly and shown our table. We ordered hot sake and four appetisers and were told that the sake would take about 5 minutes.
The sake arrived on time along with the starters, I would avoid the Japanese pickles as they look pretty but are quite bland, The fried fish in a light tempura batter was delicious.
We ordered the next course which included various pieces of chicken, fish and duck cooked in different sauces that arrived on small wooden skewers. Again, excellent service and the quality of food was good, the eel was extremely tasty! We finished off with deserts, baked chocolate with a marin ice cream and soya milk doughnuts with ice cream, both were very good.
The bill came to £35, excellent value due to the offer.
An enjoyable experience with good food and service.
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Paul Webb
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 10
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Lovely relaxed place overlooking the Thames with views of St Pauls - was not rushed to make my choices and simply allowed to pick and choose my selection and enjoy my sake. Waitresses are helpful and aim to please. An excellent find!
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Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 10
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
