They say that ninjas died out a long time ago but don't you believe it, you just have to look around carefully. That homeless guy you saw living in a cardboard box might be a ninja in disguise, or maybe that cute girl that works at the supermarket, you just never know. However, there is a certain place in Tokyo where ninjas congregate, Ninja restaurant!
It seems that these days ninjas are having trouble making ends meet with assasination, so they've gone into the service industry. So are ninjas as good at making food as they are at killing people? Time to find out! Upon entering the dark, secretive restaurant, we are taken to our private room by our ninja host. Before seating us, he climbed a few walls, took us over a secret drawbridge, posed a bit and in general acted pretty nice for a ninja. Here he is posing, for some reason, with the menu in his teeth.

But wait! Why is this guy showing his face? I thought ninjas looked like this:

In my mind ninjas are supposed to be tough, mysterious and a little mean. The ninjas we met at Ninja restaurant were polite, subservient and a some even a little dopey. Here's our main ninja waiter for the evening who I thought could benefit from a few sit-ups. I was hoping to see him break the table in half or something but he seemed to be kind of nervous. A nervous ninja! He wasn't even armed!

Anyway we were shown the drink list and some cocktails with collagen to make us more beautiful or something like that were recommended to us. Well when a ninja recommends something I tend to take his advice, but when the drinks came I wanted to groan. It might look big in the picture below but it was about one mouthful. The price? 1000 yen ($10...) I should have ordered a beer.... Here's my apricot liqueur with collagen and gold dust. Real gold, now inside of me!

So the question was, can ninjas cook? We ordered about 5 dishes and all of them were small. Clockwise from the top left: sushi rolls and eel with Camembert cheese, roast duck with eggplant, Japanese beef with potatoes and greens, and a pork meatball with vegetables. Although the servings were tiny, let me clarify that the Japanese beef wasn't just one tiny piece like in the picture. I just forgot to take a picture of it before we started eating.

Well the food was good, but I had a REAL problem with the quantity. Are the ninjas trying to provoke me into fighting them??? Little do the ninjas know that I am also a ninja! The white ninja actually. That piece of eel is going to feel my anger!

Eventually it was time to use the washroom so I wandered around a bit. The whole restaurant looked like some medieval ninja lair. Don't be fooled by the brightness, I used my flash. The place was dark. The washroom was pretty nice by ninja standards, I even had a ninja guide me there so I wouldn't get lost!

Sometimes we were served by a ninja girl! She seemed more competent than some of the other ninjas, sometimes shouting out orders and greetings like she was going to flip out any minute. Kinda cute too!

Suddenly a new ninja came in and introduced himself as 'Mark'. I told him my name was Mike and he seemed very happy about this, laughing and saying 'thank you thank you!' a few times. He then proceeded to do some magic tricks for us. Firstly with some dice, then elastic bands, then finally balloons. I was sure that I could hear the sound of many dead ninjas rolling in their graves. Balloons! He made a flower and when I said it was beautiful, he indicated Kumi and said, 'yes but she is most beautiful' and gave her the flower. Hard to argue with that! Anyway despite the fact that he didn't act like a cold, hard killer, his magic was pretty cool.

One cannot eat with ninjas without paying a hefty price, at least that's the conclusion we drew when we were presented with the bill. 5 dishes and 2 drinks came to 12,500 yen which is about $120 bucks. So was it worth it? My answer is a resounding 'No!' If you want to spend your hard earned money on silly things like watching people in costumes, then head to Disneyland. If you want to get something good to eat, for Pete's sake, just go to a regular restaurant.

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