Tsurutontan Udon Noodle Brasserie - Boston

Tsuru Ton Tan 512 Commonwealth Ave, Boston https://www.tsurutontan.com/boston

I'll be honest, when I started this thing I never envisioned myself at a Japanese udon restaurant taking part in their "All You Can Eat" hot pot promotion but here we are! Needless to say, I'm glad I had this wonderful opportunity!

I chose the chicken thigh option with shabu shabu broth and udan noodles along with cabbage, shimeji mushrooms, and bok chai. It came out delicious! The owner was nice enough to allow me to sample their USDA choice beef and that was excellent as well.

As part of the All You Can Eat promo, you can choose any appetizers that you want. I went with the following:

California sushi roll -- fresh, flavorful & delicious!

Vegetable spring rolls -- very good, could've eaten hundreds

Karaage fried chicken -- wasn't much different than any other fried chicken I've had but it was still good.

Let's talk about the general atmosphere. The place is very low-key yet very welcoming. They played a nice medley of soft rock music which enhanced the laid back atmosphere. There's two levels to this place. The bottom level appears to be their main dining area while the upper level has a full serve bar with some sectioned-off dining tables. Both levels were beautiful looking, very well organized and immaculately clean!

Finally, let's talk service. Impeccable. Outstanding. First Class. Above and Beyond. Those are the words that come to mind when I think of the service I received here. The employees are on top of everything but not too over the top. They seemed to time everything just right in terms of when I needed a plate removed, drink refilled, etc. Everyone was highly professional and very personable and it truly sealed the deal on what was an outstanding dining experience! I would absolutely return to this establishment and I would absolutely recommend that everyone check this place out!

For the price and experience of AYCE with a large group, I thought it was pretty good! I liked that servers were attentive and we could put in orders before the rest of our previous order came out (as they limit you to 3 dishes per order but it is definitely enough). The meh bites were: seaweed salad (standard seaweed salad), pork katsu (good but liked karaage better), sweet potato tempura (wasn't a huge fan though I usually am), cucumber salad (kind of flavorless), spicy tuna (meh), eel cucumber (small eel), and shrimp tempura hand roll (lacking flavor).

Yums included: karaage fried chicken (++ for this one), french fries (surprisingly good), spicy salmon (one of my favorites we got!!), salmon avocado (also had great fresh chunks of salmon), sukiyaki beef hand roll (flavorful), tan tan udon (best broth), and the cold spicy beef udon (has a specific flavor but I was a fan). Overall had enough that I enjoyed for a positive experience!

Good food, atrocious service. AYCE Japanese hot pot for $35-45? I was wondering why this place doesn't have more patrons but now I know why.

For $35, we got an AYCE menu with:
- pork and chicken hot pot
- unlimited veggies
- sushi rolls
- rice bowls
- appetizers
- udon or rice vermicelli

Coming from LA, this felt like a killer deal since a similar deal would cost $50+ in my area. However, the service absolutely killed the experience for me.

We ordered the split soup pot (half tomato, half traditional shabu shabu broth) and the server mentioned it will be an extra $3. No problem. They brought out the soup and it was cooking for about 10 mins. I took a sip of the soup and realized they served us the wrong soup (sukiyaki instead of shabu shabu). They realized their mistake and replaced the soup... but they kept the veggies from the old batch, so the soup still subtly tasted sweet from the old broth. I imagine they just dumped the soup out and added the new broth instead of completely replacing the pot.

We ordered a medley of veggies and apps but they never brought out the maitake or shiitake mushrooms - no matter how many times I ordered. Either they were out of the item or the server didn't know the difference between the different menu items.

Lastly, they brought out udon without us ordering and by the time we threw it in the pot the noodles were mushy and stuck together.

We waited over 20 mins between each order because the server didn't come by often. Since we needed to replace the soup once, we sat around waiting for quite a while during our experience. For AYCE, the lack of service is detrimental since we can't order as much food as we want and we're getting full as we're waiting for the waiter:

When we paid for our bill, they charged us TWICE for the $3 split soup. We already have one soup that comes with the order initially, so it only makes sense to be charged the $3 once, right? Honestly wasn't worth us explaining the error and reversing a charge over $3, but this was the nail in the coffin.

It's really a shame because the food is pretty decent for the price. It's not too notch but it's a good value for $35 pp. I'd come back if the servers and chefs actually knew what they were doing. The reason they are not as busy as they should be (60% capacity during peak dinner hours) is because their service is worse than fast food. I know this wasn't a unique experience because there are multiple reviews sharing the same concern. They really need to re-train their employees to better their knowledge and service so the customers don't leave frustrated as we did (and many others)!

It seems as if many Yelpers came here for the AYCE and left quite disappointed. I did not go down that road, so I can only speak for my one, very limited, takeout experience.

The spicy beef udon noodle dish is an absolute home run, borderline perfect. The meat was tender and fatty, the noodles still toothsome, and the broth was next level tasty. I will be back for this - if I lived closer, I'd pick this up weekly.

The AYCE is such a good deal!!! I got the most basic package for dinner $32 and there was still a pretty decent selection. I liked the salmon avocado and eel avocado rolls. The fish wasn't a whole cut--more small cuts and not the freshest possible but I still enjoyed it. The yam tempura was SO TASTY and the karaage was good. They had a lot of udons to try--I liked the sukiyaki but my friends liked the tan tan. The cold noodle was not for me but they liked how bouncy the noodle was. Really fun experience where you get to try alot of different items! Would definititely go again.

Gave the ultimate sushi AYCE menu a try for $82 per person. I would say it is very impressive and worth a try, but I am not sure if I would do this again given the price. The amount of uni you receive is very reasonable, and the spicy blue crab roll is delicious, but they only allow you to order 3 items per person at a time which leads to a lot of waiting that causes you to get full quickly. Overall the atmosphere and service were fine, the food definitely took the spotlight.

Save yourself some money and don't try the AYCE here. We came here on a Monday night, so it didn't look very busy at all. We ordered the value beef AYCE hotpot for our party of three. Keep in mind, choosing two broths for AYCE will cost you $3 extra PER person, and you may only order three items per person at a time, and only if your other dishes are cleared. They also don't have the typical large selection of hotpot sauces/garnishes, only the five sauces on your table. We also noticed that our hot plate was not placed in the middle of our table, making it difficult to use the hotpot.

After ordering our first round of dishes, it took about ten minutes for the soup to come out. The soup was taking a suspiciously long time to boil, so our waiter changed out the hot plate and helped boil our soup on their stove, which was nice of them. By this point, we had already waited ~30min without having any food served to us yet.

When our veggies and noodles first arrived, they were is small portions. The glass noodles barely had enough for two bites and there were only a couple pieces of cabbage and mushroom. We asked for more noodles and veggies after the first round, but again, it felt like eternity before they arrived. Also note that that veggies and udon are supposed to come out on a rolling basis (without needing to explicitly order again and again). This is definitely not the case as we had to ask about the veggies and udon several times.

We also ordered some random fried dishes to try. I really enjoyed their spring rolls, they were super crispy and flavorful. The Takoyaki however, was disappointing because it was all dough and a pea-size piece of octopus. We also ordered chicken karaage in our first round and didn't receive it until maybe an hour later. The chicken karaage was also subpar and poorly made.

We constantly found ourselves asking our server about our missing dishes, and waiting around as our table was often empty, which defeats the whole purpose of AYCE. We even had to ask for a broth refill because our broth was at the point of drying out, which is something I typically don't need to ask for in a hotpot restaurant.

Overall, the food was good but not amazing nor worth the price. I appreciate how much the servers tried to help us, but the service was just so slow for a Monday night. While looking at their menus, it felt like they are trying to do too many things at once (AYCE hotpot and AYCE sushi/udon) which may be why our hotpot experience was less than ideal. I wouldn't recommend this place to friends, but I would want to try something else from their menu that isn't AYCE.

We got the Ultimate package AYCE for $52 and to be honest it was not worth the price. They had more kitchen items than sashimi/seafood, but I will say that their kitchen food SLAPPED. The tempuras were so yummy and fresh so it wasn't too greasy! I will suggest that if you just want a lot of kitchen items, just do the basic option for $28 because they still have the basic makimonos and kitchen items too.

However, the atmosphere of the place is so nice and the waiters were so efficient/super fast with the orders which I really appreciated. There are a lot of seats and a lot of things to try from the menu. I love their udon menus (not AYCE) because they're HUGE and yummy which is great for the very cold winter we will have. The 3 star is for the AYCE experience but the non-AYCE experience would be probably a 4!

Conveniently located right next to the Kenmore station, Tsurutontan caught my attention because of its long lines and so (without even yelping first haha) I just had to try it before my flight back to LA.

Started off strong with scallop and uni sashimi, filet beef appetizer, and seared wagyu uni nigiri. All was good and I'd order the seared wagyu nigiri twice, except I'd skip the filet beef next time. It was too well-done for me. Next, I ordered toro sashimi, hamachi sashimi, clam sashimi, and uni creme udon. After the sashimi's, I was pretty full. The bowls are quite big, so even when I requested smaller portions, I had uni udon leftovers. Bowls are almost as big as the ancient pottery I saw at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts across the street lol. I wanted to try the sukiyaki and different tan tan udons, but didn't want to waste food with my leftovers so skipped those this time. Lastly, I had the oysters, spicy tuna over crispy rice, and cucumber salad and it was so refreshing!

Summary:
Scallop sashimi (5/5)
Uni sashimi (4/5)
Filet beef (2/5)
Seared wagyu and uni nigiri (5/5)
Clam sashimi (4/5)
Toro sashimi (4/5)
Hamachi sashimi (4/5)
Uni creme udon (3/5)
Fried oysters (4/5)
Cucumber salad (5/5)
Spicy tuna over crispy rice (5/5)
Yuzu honey ice cream (5/5)

It's definitely quantity over quality here, but doesn't necessarily compromise on quality, so if you are new to sushi, I'd say give this place a shot! You can order an unlimited amount with premium, but I was just too full to order more. I wished they gave smaller portions (like a quarter of the normal amount) and added dessert to the premium, but that's separate. Oo and they have Lady M's crepe cakes, but we can easily have that in LA so went with the yuzu honey ice cream instead. Overall, really great value and speedy friendly service! Honestly the restaurant is so big~~I don't understand the long lines, but it's very busy and a bit loud inside for sure. Would definitely return the next time I am in Kenmore :)

We love all you can eat places, and when we saw a bunch of Instagram reels showing the food at Tsurutontan, we had to try it.

When we showed up, the restaurant wasn't busy, so we had someone explain the AYCE menu to us (we were a little confused about how it worked). I believe there are 2 AYCE options. The first option (which we chose) was a hot pot option where you could choose a broth, choose an endless meat (price varies), and then choose endless hot food and sushi (price also varies and your options are tied to what meat you ordered). There was also a basic AYCE hot food/sushi with no hot pot that we did not order that has different price tiers for different options.

After seating us at a table, we strangely had to wait almost 10 minutes for someone to bring us waters and take our order despite it not being too busy. After we had our order taken, however, the food was pretty quick to come out. In general, the service was pretty mixed, since sometimes they were super attentive and stopped by a few times to ask if we needed anything, but other times (like halfway through our meal), we had to wait about 15 minutes for someone to walk by with a water refill despite our empty glasses being put on the edge of the table for them to see.

Anyway, we ended up choosing the hot pot AYCE with pork/chicken for $35/person. Because it came with hot food and sushi, we also ordered some other items as well:

Spicy TanTan broth with pork slices, veggies, udon, fish balls, and enoki mushrooms: The broth was not super spicy, so if that's what you like then it is not a bad choice, but we were hoping for a little more kick. The pork was pretty standard loin meat cut thinly, and we were happy that even though we ordered the pork/chicken option, we didn't have to have chicken. The fish balls weren't bad and the veggies, mushrooms, and noodles were pretty standard. They gave chili flakes, sesame sauce, chili oil, and ponzu to make a dipping sauce as well. We weren't super impressed by the options here or the taste itself, but it wasn't bad - satisfying but not outstanding.

Sushi (spicy tuna, spicy salmon, yellowtail avocado): The spicy tuna was an abnormal red color and didn't have too much flavor, but the spicy salmon was pretty good. It had nice chunks of salmon in it, and the ratio of filling to rice was decent. The yellowtail avocado was by far my favorite here though - there was a lot of fish and the avocado was perfectly ripe. The rice in all of the rolls had some hard/undercooked bits, but it wasn't too distracting. The sushi tasted like sushi from a japanese restaurant that doesn't specialize in sushi, which is pretty on point for what this place is.

Shrimp Tempura: This was very good. It came out hot and crispy, and the shrimp was not overcooked. It didn't taste too oily, and the dipping sauce added some nice flavors. We'd definitely get more of this if we return.

Takoyaki: This was also pretty good, but there may have been a tad too much batter and it was pretty filling. However, the outside was nice and crispy and the inside was still gooey, so it was above average for an all you can eat - it definitely tasted like they made these and they weren't premade/frozen ones that you make in an oven.

All in all, the strange variance in service attention did put a damper on some of the meal, and the food was alright. We did order the cheapest option at $35/person though, so we didn't pay for the higher tiered items. The only thing that was in the back of our minds was that there is definitely a much higher quality sushi AYCE available in Boston for exactly the same price on a Sunday night, but if you want some pretty good hot food and the added variety of having hotpot, this wasn't a bad choice. I'm not sure if we will be back, but it is nice to have options when it comes to AYCE Japanese food. We would not come here solely for the sushi, however - the real strength of this restaurant is its variety.

Been meaning to check out Tsurutontan, but since they now have the AYCE sushi menu I had to go.

The restaurant is actually really nice inside, but it was super busy when I arrived so make sure to do a reservation!! Service overall wasn't the worse, but also wasn't the best since we had to get their attention a lot of times to order more or flag a missing item.

Value wise, it's $32 for the Deluxe AYCE and you get to try different options than just sushi. There's 2 other prices, but I think the Deluxe was more than enough. I did want some nigiri and sashimi but atm $52 for the Premium choice was a bit too much so maybe next time.

For the Deluxe, we had to try the sukiyaki udon. I appreciate the portion being in a smaller bowl and not the huge bowls they usually serve in because I don't think I would've finished it. The broth was super flavorful (to the point it was too much since it was really sweet too). The meat was a bit thicker than other sukiyakis but still good. The sushi options though were pretty basic so if you're looking to come here for sushi getting the Premium option for $52 is more worth. The takoyaki was very doughy than usual takoyakis so I don't think I'd get this again. Overall the food was pretty good (if you pick and choose correctly your choices). Because on our second round, we chose some things that were pretty mid like the takoyaki, curry, pork katsu, and spicy tuna.