Open Every day from 11:00 am to 11:00 pm. Cards OK
Telephone numbers
Kichi-Joji 0422-20-8670
Roppongi 3478-5877
Shinjuku 3205-7123
Shibuya 3770-7275 or 7286
Ueno 5688-3226

Indian food is important in a man's life, and must be chosen with care. If you want to eat Indian food, go to Ajanta, Marhaba or Moti. There's thousands of good and cheap Indian restaurants around. With such good alternatives, I see no reason why one should go to Samrat (unless you want to dine in Shinjuku and don't like Raj Mahal), since here whether you eat well or not is more or less result of sheer luck. I have been to several branches, and none is spectacularly good; nowhere have I eaten as badly as in Kichi-Joji. The best is Ueno's. On the other hand, I have been two days ago to their Shinjuku's branch, and liked their curries. Shibuya for some reason also seems to be better than the rest. In other words: Samrat is ureliable and, having the choice, I still would rather somewhere else.

Sunil, who, at least judging from his name, is Indian and knows his food better than I, sends the following comments.

Dear Frank,

How's life? You look much better clean shaven. Let me introduce you this Indian restaurant "SAMRAT" in Shibuya. Their Lunch Sets for Yen 890 are wonderful. Two curries with as much rice and nan as you can eat, and delicious spicy milk Tea. They also have branches in Roppongi, Shinjuku, Ueno and Kichijoji. I just browsed over their site
URL http://www.samrat.co.jp.
They were listed on the very top of Alta Vista Samrat listings.

Reader Derek finds my minireview of Samrat much too severe. Here he goes.
"I must take exception to your (somewhat) scathing review of the Samrat restaurant chain. Now while I have not been to any other the other stores, the Samrat near where I live (the Shirogane branch) has been excellent. I generally go there at least once a week and every dish I have tried has been exquisite. I know it is a rather unoriginal choice, but my favourite is the butter chicken curry and it is absolutely top class (the naan is excellent too).

Anyway, just a different point of view for you."

Last updated on January 2005