Dining at Robata Honten or at Mikawa in Tokyo is an unforgettable experience. Both are presided over by men in their 60s, one a restaurateur, the other a chef. Both exude old-world Japanese hospitality. Both inhabit buildings at least 60 years old. And both, as in so many of Tokyo's restaurants, only take cash.

Robata Honten is on a narrow road full of restaurants but it stands out because the building is lower than its neighbours (a clue to its age) and because the other restaurants display plastic versions of the dishes they offer, while Robata Honten shows off a tray of fresh vegetables by its door.

It is the vegetables, plus the bottle of wine in the window, that makes me stop and peer through its sliding door. I am intrigued by what I see. The whole interior seems to be made up of dark, well-worn wood. A man in formal Japanese attire stands in front of a strikingly tall woman in a dark kimono.