I first tried John and Yoko several months ago… I and Philippe were on a food trip, and since I’m such a fan of Japanese food, I decided to order several dishes.. so long as they were within my budget. 2 days ago, I visited John and Yoko for the second time! I must say, I’m still as please as I first was!

John and Yoko is a restaurant found on the 2nd floor of Greenbelt 5. If you didn’t read the name, I bet you wouldn’t even think it was a Japanese restaurant. I honestly thought it looked more like a club because of its vivid red, purple and black colors! However, as its name already informs us, it’s a Cosmopolitan Japanese restaurant. It’s unlike the typical Japanese style restaurants here in the Philippines where the place looks “quiet” and “homey”. It didn’t look like any simple restaurants filled with white lights, chairs and tables either. The light was dim and the walls were black designed with purple and red colors! Perfect for today’s generation and some of the hip older generation.

This restaurant is slowly becoming one of my favorite restaurants! haha and I actually ordered a lot, but I’ll try to tell you how they all were.

First off was the Japanese Rice.

It was good. It has mostly the same ingredients as typical fried rice, except the rice they used was a bit softer and stickier than the normal fried rice. It was mostly filled with vegetables and meat, though I don’t recall tasting anything in specific (Unlike the Filipino fried rice where you’d particularly taste the green peas and hotdogs). It was more like a whole bundle of joy in my mouth!

Next up is the Salmon Belly Teriyaki.

I’m a real fan of salmon! I absolutely love it! I do however remember how my brother first forced me to eat raw salmon when I was younger. I thought it was served accidentally because it was uncooked! I didn’t know back then about the wonderful world of sushi! So anyways, the Salmon Belly was a little sweet, because of the teriyaki sauce. My favorite part about it though was how it tasted so soft and fresh, as if I were eating the raw salmon (for those who aren’t fans of sushi, don’t worry, I swear it’s still good!).. it was so soft that it melted in my mouth! (so I exaggerate a little…hehe)

Mt. Fuji Steak

First of all, I’m not complaining, I actually enjoyed this dish a lot! But this dish tasted more like an American dish. 2 pieces of boneless steak dipped in mushroom sauce! Really good! I guess that’s part of the “cosmopolitan” style of this restaurant. Underneath all the steak and mushroom were french fries dipped in the same sauce. The fries were a bit soggy though ‘coz of the sauce, and they kinda felt weird to me. The steak and mushroom sauce though was a classic!

Beef Teppan

I could say that this is one of my favorite dishes here at John and Yoko. The beef is cut into cubes and served with bean sprout (which was also good by the way!) Though the been sprouts were vegetables, there was something about it that had an umami taste (meaty taste). So back to the beef… the beef was really tender and soft. I couldn’t quite pinpoint what ingredient was used, but there was a faint taste of dairy. The taste was not too strong to alter what real beef should taste like, but it was enough to keep me craving for more!

Dragon Roll

Eating in a Japanese restaurant would not be complete without an order of sushi! The restaurant’s menu had around 10 different kinds of sushi that I didn’t know what to order! I ended up ordering the dragon roll. The dragon roll was rice stuffed with unagi (eel) and fresh mangoes on top. This is only my second time to have tasted eel so for those who haven’t tasted eel… well it’s seafood, so it has that distinct taste, but unlike fish, it isn’t as soft. Eel is actually a little hard… in a way, some part of it’s meat is like  uncooked noodles. You’d be lucky if the meat you got was soft, though I was told that it takes too long to cook eel meat to get it to become that soft.

So anyways, that pretty much sums up my John and Yoko experience. I’ll definitely go back here to try out the other dishes on their menu! You guys should too! I swear you won’t be disappointed!