Authentic, good quality, tasty and affordable Japanese cuisine is hard to come by in Dubai but I have just found the one! Today’s lunch at Bentoya was the most satisfying Japanese meal I’ve had since we moved to Dubai. When we were at the restaurant earlier, most of the other customers are Japanese. That says a lot on how authentic their food is! I was so excited to have found this restaurant that I just ordered away, without bothering if we could finish the food.
We ordered crunchy unagi roll, agedashi tofu, stir-fried beef with bean sprouts, chicken katsu bento and vegetable and tofu hotpot for 3 of us. On top of that, I had a whole plate of salmon sashimi all by myself! 8 slices of fresh and fat salmon. Oishii! The only dish that I wasn’t particularly impressed with was the agedashi tofu. The tofu just wasn’t soft and smooth enough for my liking. It’s a pity they don’t serve pork in the restaurant, substituting many of their pork dishes with beef. But other than that, I’m so in love with this restaurant that I say:
Our bill came up to around AED 260 (USD 75). Pretty reasonable for the quality of food. Service was good too! Bentoya has a few locations in Dubai. We went to the one along Sheikh Zayed Road, near DIFC. Check out their website for locations and contact details. Bentoya provides home delivery service too. Simply place your order online.
Image Source: Bentoya’s website
Besides the restaurant, the owner and chef of Bentoya has recently opened a Japanese food material store Gourmet-Ya, located just a few steps from Bentoya. Despite the small shop space, it has almost everything you need in Japanese cuisine – fish, meat, seasoning, rice, seaweed and soup stock, along with many Japanese snacks. I just had to get them!! Green tea and azuki bean ice cream, yuzu mochi, sakura mochi and my favorite oolong tea!!
They don’t sell pork in the shop but there is pork available for delivery if you order online. Check out Gourmet-ya’s website for their list of food items and you’ll know why I’m raving about this place. Delivery is free within Dubai! 
