First on our list is Kushiya Monogatari. It is a buffet restaurant offering kushiage or skewered vegetables and meat. It also has 12 branches in Tokyo and several branches in major cities in the country. The Ikebukuro branch is a 1-minute walk from Ikebukuro Station and is housed on the 7th floor of the LABI1 building.

The store has a system where you can choose your favorite from carefully selected ingredients and fry it yourself. You can enjoy all-you-can-eat buffet-style food, such as skewers, salads, side dishes, cakes, fruits, ochazuke or cooked rice in tea and curry.

Normally, shrimp, meat and fresh vegetables are dipped in batter and fried. The piping hot and juicy skewered shrimp seems to be the most popular dish. However, aside from kushiage, they also have a wide selection of food, including sweets like chocolate fountains, homemade soft-serve ice cream!

As you take your seat, you will be provided with Kushiya Monogatari-original blended dough made with carefully selected ingredients and breadcrumbs made with ingredients that do not easily absorb oil so they can be fried.

This allows you to easily enjoy kushiage by simple frying raw ingredients. If you're running out of batter and breadcrumbs, you can get some more from a pot located somewhere within the restaurant!

They also have a wide array of sauces for kushiage such as sweet sauce, spicy sauce, ponzu, plum sauce, grated daikon, cheese sauce, seasonal sauce, and awayuki sauce. In addition, tartar sauce, maple syrup, and various salts are also available, so you can eat skewers in a variety of flavors.

Kushiya Monogatari offers a full lineup of rice, curry roux, yakisoba, pasta, salads, and sweets. All are included in the all-you-can-eat buffet, so you might enjoy the fact that you can freely create your own original menu with your favorite food combinations!

For example, you can make curry rice if you combine curry and rice. You can also make a summer vegetable curry made by throwing toppings such as okra, eggplant, and lotus root in the fryer without batter and breadcrumbs. Speaking of skewers, we recommend the ingredients kit for the regular ochazuke to close your meal.

Sweets are recommended as after-meal desserts. The chocolate fountain, soft-serve ice cream, and cakes, which are always available in different kinds, make for a very satisfying dessert lineup. You can also make the recently popular tapioca tea with milk tea, matcha milk and strawberry milk flavors.

Aside from kushiage, they have an endless menu that allows you to create combinations and arrangement recipes from a wide array of ingredients -- even rice and sweets! Kushiya Monogatari is an entertaining place filled with adventure where you can enjoy picking, frying and eating delicious food. Lunch time on weekdays is 1,500 yen for 90 minutes and lunch time on Saturdays and Sundays is 1,700 yen for 70 minutes (Excluding tax). All food except juices and alcohol is all-you-can-eat.

Next on our list is the life table. It is a designer's bar where you can eat a specially formulated raw cheese fondue and carefully selected homemade roast beef using premium beef. It is located on the 8th floor of a building along the street in front of the station, a 1-minute walk from the east exit of Ikebukuro Station.

The spacious interior is full of private rooms and designer seats for small groups and is also recommended for private drinking parties. This sophisticated and stylish space supervised by a famous designer is perfect for girls' parties and dates.

Enjoy all-you-can-eat cheese fondue lunch at the restaurant! They have an economical and trending menu for 1,280 yen without tax which includes 10 kinds of all-you-can-eat cheese, salad, a soup bar and a drink bar -- all of which you can enjoy for unlimited hours.

First, you will be served cheese fondue and a mini salad. You can order additional cheese fondue ingredients and sauce from the clerk and you can refill your bowl in the soup bar and your glass in the drink bar.

There are many types of cheese fondue ingredients. Apart from sausages, their meat ingredients also include fried chicken cut in bite sizes. Vegetables include potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, red paprika, yellow paprika, young corn, snap peas, carrots and cherry tomatoes. Seasonal vegetables such as zucchini in summer and eggplant in autumn are available every season. Additionally, you can always enjoy their 10 kinds of cheese ingredients with baguettes.

This restaurant is famous for having a wide variety of cheese fondue sauces. The first three sauces they offer are the plain, fresh tomato and honey butter. These flavors seem to be the most popular sauces.

If you want to enjoy more kinds of sauces, you can order additional sauce from the waiters. Starting from the top left of the photo is the Italian basil, soy milk, olive oil, and red cheddar. Starting from the bottom left of the photo is the spicy sauce (cayenne pepper and chili pepper), avocado, and mentaiko cod roe. You can enjoy all of these cheese fondue sauces at this restaurant.

When the plate is heated with a tabletop gas cylinder, you will hear the pleasant sound of sizzling vegetables being cooked. While mixing to prevent them from being burned, dig in the cheese fondue while it's still hot! The best part of their all-you-can-eat restaurant is that you have access to free-flowing melted thick cheese.

All-you-can-eat lunch options include an unlimited French fries and shrimp chips for 300 yen per person, and a homemade roast beef for 1 person for an additional 380 yen excluding tax.

We recommend that you enjoy several kinds of cheese fondue since you can order a serving for one person. But, they require that you eat all of the food that you took! If there are leftovers, you will have to pay 300 yen, so try to enjoy the all-you-can-eat food while checking how full you are!

Last on the list is "Viking Kuikui". This is an all-you-can-eat yakiniku or Japanese barbecue and shabu-shabu restaurant located about a 3-minute walk from the east exit of Ikebukuro Station. They have more than unlimited dishes you can enjoy such as yakiniku, sushi, and sweets.

At lunchtime, the yakiniku buffet for one person is 1,400 yen for 60 minutes and 1,600 for 90 minutes tax excluded. You can enjoy all-you-can-eat yakiniku, sushi, ramen, pasta, sweets and drinks at an affordable price!

Their lunch buffet regularly offers more than 10 kinds of meat, which is why this restaurant is popular for its wide variety of yakiniku. Bearing in mind the meat's freshness and mouthfeel, almost all of the food on the menu are manually cut inside the restaurant.

They have several types of meat that will satisfy your hunger just by looking at them. Aside from skirt steak, beef ribs, beef sirloin steak, and beef tongue, they also have a wide selection of internal organs such as small intestines and large intestines. They also have a wide selection of grilled meat using various parts and seasonings for beef, pork, and chicken such as apple pork, pork fat, chicken tail, and herb-grilled chicken.

You can find several seasonings in the corner where the words "sauce life" is written. The base of yakiniku sauce is soy sauce and miso sauce. If you mix it with their special chili oil you can enjoy a lot of food with different accents! Some dishes are seasoned on the meat itself, but we also recommend adding your favorite seasoning with a wide variety of sauces.

Speaking of yakiniku, vegetables are also an essential ingredient. They have unlimited vegetables like cabbage, carrot, squash, and okra, as well as kimchi and salad.

Take meat and vegetables on a plate and cook them on the strainer available in each table. Since this is a self-service all-you-can-eat buffet, you can try all kinds of food, but leaving leftovers would be considered bad table etiquette! That's why you have to choose your food wisely while checking your stomach.

We also highly recommend the noodle section which goes will with yakiniku! This section allows you to boil ramen, spaghetti, and udon noodles, season them with your favorite sauce, add toppings and eat them. They offer 4 kinds of ramen such as salt, soy sauce, tonkotsu, and tomato sauce.

In addition, they serve several dishes such as chicken wings, French fries, tempura among other fried food, sushi, ochazuke, curry, and mapo tofu. They also have a wide variety of sweets such as ice cream, various cakes, and chocolate fondue. In particular, they have make-your-own cotton candy and crepe, so it's exciting whether it will turn out good.

Aside from yakiniku, Viking Kuikui allows you to enjoy your favorite food to your heart's content from the wide array of 80 dishes. Viking Kuikui is a place where you can enjoy to the fullest based on the store manager’s idea of a "fun, delicious and memorable meal".

Written by Naho Jishikyu