I can’t believe my sister and I hung out in Greenhills the whole day. It may not be that unusual if we actually stayed there the entire time but note that we went there separately in the morning (I had breakfast with my brother and she with her client), met up while they were doing a little shopping, went all the way home to Antipolo, and then went back to Greenhills again for dinner.

Initially my sister wanted to eat at Teriyaki Boy at the Promenade because she was craving for Kani Salad but since there was a long wait, we decided to just walk around and look for another Jap place. We saw Tokyo Tokyo after a bit of walking but they were just too fastfood-y for our taste. We kept walking and after a while we just felt too hungry to be picky. We saw Italianni’s (at the Carpark building) and headed towards that direction. Italianni’s was twenty steps away when she suddenly stops near the elevator and stares at a banner. There’s a promising Japanese restaurant at the 2nd floor. GREAT!

The staff opened the doors and we were led to custom-built Japanese style wooden booth. Hmmm. Very promising indeed.

Genji Restaurant was located at the CarPark building in Greenhills, above Yellow Cab. As soon as we sat down my sister immediately asked if they had Kani Salad. She ordered this and that and I just had to ask the waiter to get me a Raspberry iced tea first (Php. 88 – bottomless). I was so damn thirsty, I couldn’t even think straight. Ever courteous and polite, the waiter signalled for my drink and it arrived in less than two minutes. Only then did I got to order.

Genji wasn’t a sosy Japanese place but it felt authentic. The bamboo paintings on the walls, the dim lantern lights and the booths made me feel like I was in an authentic Japanese restaurant. I wouldn’t be surprised if the owner was really Japanese. They even have two of those moving trays where you can get small dishes! Green plates cost Php.128, Red plates cost Php. 108, Purple plates cost Php.68, Pink plates cost Php. 48. Another thing we immediately noticed is their wasabi. Their wasabi didn’t come from a tube! The paste looked homemade and was in a jar and in all the Japanese restaurants I’ve eaten at, I’ve never seen wasabi in a jar. It looked like green clay. I can’t say I’m an expert at tasting wasabi but this one was pretty nice… the mix had just the right tang.

Our food arrived within fifteen minutes, we didn’t even feel the time pass by because we were too engrossed at the place. We were checking out the moving colored plates on the tray! The Miso soup (free with the meals we ordered) and the Kani salad (Php. 48) arrived first. The only thing my sister said about the Kani salad is that Genji didn’t shred the cucumber unlike Teriyaki Boy. This wasn’t really a problem because you can request to have the cucumber shredded when you order. At this point we couldn’t do that anymore because she poured the mayo on the salad already. Tsktsk.

My Ten Don (Php. 168) arrived moments later and boy, just by looking at it you can tell that their servings are huge! There were only two prawns but there were about 8 huge-ass veggie servings. I had no complaints. Just staring at it made me full.

My sister’s bento box (Php. 368) wasn’t any different. It was, again, HUGE. All our orders arrived and we just weren’t sure how we could eat all of it!

The Ten Don was great… assortment of veggies was good enough. The rice was made just right. One of the things I’m really concerned at when I eat at Japanese restaurants is the rice. The rice should be made well enough so you can use chopsticks on them. Some Japanese restaurants suck at this. Genji didn’t.

The Bento Box was pretty surprising. We didn’t really expect it to have this much variety but it did. It had a nice combination of tuna, salmon, and prawns. The seeweeds weren’t bad either. Presentation was superb as you can see from the image, pretty good color combination if you ask me.

We were really hungry when we came in but we just couldn’t finish all the food! A dessert even arrived (it came with the Bento). By ten o’clock we decided to just have the remaining food wrapped and have coffee. Overall, I’d say Genji Restaurant was a great find. I think my sister and I will be hitting it more than Teriyaki Boy whenever we’re in Greenhills (which is sort of becoming a weekly thing). She’s bringing in her client next week because the client’s a Jap food freak. Yep, it’s that good. You won’t be embarrassed to recommend it.

It was a good Saturday night.