Have you wondered what it would be like to play ping pong while eating Italian food or drinking your favorite highball? Well, T4, the new ping pong restaurant in Shibuya, is here to grant your wish.
Tokyo is definitely not shy of themed restaurants — ranging from cuddly cat cafes to terrifyingly good haunted house restaurants. Combining eating, drinking, enjoying and training, T4 is still one of its kind for incorporating table tennis and virtual reality sports at their restaurant.
Ever since Jun Mizutani won Japan’s first Olympic table tennis medal at the Rio Olympics last year, the sport has grabbed the hearts of many Japanese. More and more locals have started to take interest in the sport by joining different ping pong groups.
Jumping on the band wagon, T4 collaborated with The Rally Table to create a ping pong themed restaurant to allow diners to further enjoy the new popular sport. The restaurant, created by Transit, features a spacious bar and dining lounge and, naturally, a ping pong table.
Of course, we can’t talk about a restaurant without mentioning the food. The casual Italian cuisine restaurant has lunch sets including Tokyo Cowboy’s hamburger plate made from Japanese wagyu (1,600 yen) and Smoked Chicken Cobb Salad (950 yen) that come with bread, soup and a drink. It also has luscious menus such as the Five Kinds of Grilled Meat Platter (4,500 yen) for a family of four to share and refreshing appetizers like the Cheese Stand featuring daily made burrata cheese complemented by fresh sweet strawberries (1,400 yen). Ping pong-inspired desserts such as the Ping-Pong Pancake (850 yen) and Ping-Pong Racket Ice Pop (350 yen) are also available for those with a sweet tooth.
In addition to The Rally Table, T4 will shortly introduce Pong Pong, a digital table tennis activity developed by Akatsuki. Changing your traditional perspective of the sport, the game projects the mapping on both sides of the ping pong table and tracks the ball’s movement to create a memorable entertainment experience. The game will arrive at T4 in July.
For those who are more serious about the sport, T4 gives you a chance to buy Victas’ high quality table tennis apparel goods and book lessons with professional coaches to sharpen your skills from Tactive. You can even get your hands on Japan’s national ping pong team apparel for a limited time.
What are you waiting for? Head on over to T4, which opened on June 8, for an exciting new ping pong and food adventure!
Location: T4 Table Tennis Town, 1-12-16 Jinnan, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo (Tel: 03-6452-5743)
Opening hours
The Rally Table: Lunch (11:30 a.m. - 3 p.m.; L.O. 2:30 p.m.) Dinner (6 p.m. - 11:30 p.m.; L.O. 11 p.m.)
VICTAS 11 a.m. - 10 p.m. (Closed Tuesdays and Holidays)
TACTIVE 10 a.m.- 10 p.m. (Closed Tuesdays and Holidays)
- External Link
- https://t-4.jp/tokyo/
3 Comments
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John Brown
I went to Japan for two weeks walking almost every, minus using the trains obviously. Almost one whole week in Tokyo itself, and besides one Maid Cafe and a Final Fantasy cafe or two, I really did not see any other of these unique restaurants.
Heck I was assuming sushi shops and even conveyor belt sushi would be a dime a dozen, but I did not see hardly any sushi at all, not shops specializing in it anyway.
And then I was severely disappointed in the vending machines. Yes they were practically everywhere, on almost every street corner practically, but I was expecting to see high tech ones and I did not, minus one that was just a touch screen. What happened to the face recognition, guess/suggest your drink by age, sex, etc.? Or vending machines selling umbrellas?
However this ping pong restaurant sounds fun and some of the prices very reasonable. Perhaps next time...
metaterapin
Many visitors end up being disappointed like that because of the weird portrayals and generalizations people overseas make of Japan..Everyone here's all these weird fantasies and tales and arrive to find out it's a normal place like anywhere else, albeit much safer and nicer and cleaner. The really awesome stuff is under the surface.
Toasted Heretic
You're darn right. East Tokyo for best bars and food. And best people (IMHO)