Have you been to Little Tokyo? Situated right across Makati Cinema Square’s Plaza Fair is a quaint little set of Japanese restaurants. You can easily miss it if you’re driving, so keep your eyes peeled for that red structure with the silver letters. You can park by their Pasong Tamo entrance, or you can park in MCS and go shopping after. Here’s a glimpse of Little Tokyo.


A zen garden welcomes you as you step into the square. It was lunch time when we visited and surprisingly, there weren’t that many people. It must have been a slow day. I liked how clean and quiet the place was. It was surrounded by several Japanese restaurants with red lanterns hanging by their doors. Almost all the signs were written in Japanese too so we got to do a lot of guessing. That was part of the fun.

Some of the restaurants have their menus displayed by their entrances so you can go over it if you’d like. You can also be adventurous and randomly choose a place.

This one looked pretty interesting…


… but Coco Hot Pot caught our eyes. Maybe because the restaurant’s name was written in English? Truth is this place was recommended by a friend of ours. My friends have eaten in Little Tokyo several times and they always chose Coco Hot Pot. We were about to find out why.

I’m not exactly sure what this banner says but hey, the food was good. Whoops, no pictures. In a nutshell, eating hot pot style means having a pot of simmering broth at the center of your dining table, and sliding in ingredients of your choice. You do the cooking yourself. We had ordered dishes of fish balls, squid balls, fish fillet, shrimp, fish lips, tofu, eggs, sate sauce, minced garlic, chili, noodles and various vegetables. You don’t have to be a professional chef to know how to work it. You can always ask for help from the staff too. After a few minutes, we were feasting heartily. Delicious.

After your meal, take a little walk around the garden. Well, it’s not gonna be a long walk. You can sit on the benches and just take in the quiet scenery of the square.

Perhaps you could take a cat nap too? These cats looked like they had one meal too many. They were just dozing in the early afternoon sun! So cute.

We left the place with happy tummies and talks on when we were to come back to Little Tokyo. While I loved Little Tokyo for the scrumptious Coco Hot Pot meal and their friendly staff, it was the quaintness of the whole square that made me want to return.

Itadakimasu!

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Little Tokyo
2277 between Pasong Tamo and Amorsolo St.
Makati
Tel. 819-5008, 819-5009