Subdued lighting and dark wooden furniture carry with them, for some untold, mystical reason, the promise of excellent food.

    Tokyo Lobby builds on this atmosphere with a promisingly vast menu of sushi, tempura, and other Japanese delights. The prices that accompany them seem only natural given the classy feel of one’s surroundings.

    Apart from the sushi, which is served in traditionally sized rolls, the portions well exceed expectations, especially the “boats,” enormous assortments designed for groups but able to feed even more people than the menu recommends them for. This is fortunate, because all other attributes of the food are disappointing.

    The tempura and various sauce-smothered animal parts are greasy and flavorless. The sushi is just par and, as previously mentioned, does not have the quantity-to-money ratio on its side that the inferior dishes do. Part of the reason the boats feed more people that they appear to is that even the hardiest appetite could not last long in battle against such armies of oil.

    The light of the sun, if it is still shining, or the openness of the sky if it is not, is like a breath of life upon emerging from darkness of Tokyo Lobby, which slips almost imperceptibly during the meal from quaintly cozy to oppressively claustrophobic.

    In acknowledgement of the impressive array of passable traditional sushi and the absence of anything dangerous or instantly repulsive, I give it two stars out of five.

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