Extra Seat Available at Tokyo’s Impossible-To-Book Tonkatsu Narikura on Saturday, January 4

Hi everyone,

I signed up to Reddit just to post this, because I wasn't sure how else to address my predicament here.

I'm doing a solo food-focused trip to Tokyo (visiting from New York) from January 3 to 10. This will be my fourth food-focused Japan trip, and the first one I have done solo.

I have tried to book at Tonkatsu Narikura as soon as reservations became available on each of my last two trips to Japan and have failed both times. Narikura is the #1 tonkatsu restaurant in Tokyo with a 4.27 rating on Tabelog (the #2 spot only has a 3.94).

This time, I succeeded in booking Narikura the second reservations became available for the period from January 1 through January 5, but I was only able to book for two people – I guess they don't accommodate solo diners? I decided to just take the reservation and figure out how to make it work later. (I also checked the page again right after booking and everything for all five days was gone.)

So I booked a two-person table at 5:30pm on Saturday, January 4 for their "Special New Year's Menu," which costs ¥10,000/pp. The details for the menu can be found here – https://omakase.in/en/r/qw473765. I also ordered one "Take-out Shabu Briand Katsu Sandwich” for an extra ¥2,000 that, in retrospect, I don't actually want, because I'm going to be eating several other big meals that day (including lunch at ZURRIOLA).

So what I am looking for is for someone to take the other seat on the Tonkatsu Narikura reservation and the extra take-out chateaubriand katsu sandwich. I would also ask whoever takes the seat to send me a Venmo or Paypal or something like that (not sure what the equivalent is in Japan) for the ¥12,000 cost in advance, just because I don't want to risk a no-show and then either having to pay for two meals myself or, even worse, the restaurant saying that they won't seat me because I'm a single diner for a two-person reservation.

I also posted this same post on r/JapanTravel and r/finedining, and if there is anyone else who is more familiar with reddit than I am has any other suggestions for where to post it to potentially get a response, please let me know!

Thanks very much, and please DM me if you are interested!