A note on the words: Kaihimmakuhari is a station in Chiba, east of Tokyo, and the stop for Makuhari Messe, the convention center where large concerts and trade shows are held, which is why the restaurants around it fill up on event nights. Mapo tofu is soft tofu simmered in a hot, numbing chili and bean-paste sauce; bang bang ji is cold poached chicken under a sesame sauce; shuizhu, mentioned in passing, is the Sichuan dish of meat poached in a broth of chili and oil. Prices are as of this writing (August 2026).
Table of Contents hide
Book a table at Chin Tan Tan on AutoReserve (English)
Hello, this is Hangover Meshi. This time out to Kaihimmakuhari for an event! It is quite a way, Makuhari. But when there is an event on at Makuhari Messe there is nothing for it but to go! And on the way home someone said let us go for a drink, so we stopped in at Chin Tan Tan, Kaihimmakuhari Station Front.
There are a good many places to eat nearby, but this being an event day lol every one of them was packed, and even here we waited about twenty minutes to get in. Event days do a roaring trade!
Inside, the room runs a long way back and is enormous. All those seats, and still full. Impressive lol
The menu is enormous.
Let us simply pick whatever we feel like eating!
Beer first, and a toast!
With the place as busy as this, getting an order through takes some doing, but we pressed on lol
It was marked extra hot, with three flame symbols beside it, but this is a mild mapo tofu^^
Less Sichuan style than plain mapo tofu, really. The seasoning is on the strong side, which makes it ideal with beer! Delicious^^
Bang bang ji! Lovely juicy chicken! The sauce is good, though it does not go beyond what an ordinary Chinese restaurant does.
But that is exactly what you want! The drinking is the main event^^ The beer keeps going down.
The stir-fried pea shoots cost more than the bang bang ji or the mapo tofu lol
Vegetables have gone up in price as well! The pea shoots are crisp and cooked exactly right. The smell of garlic gets the appetite going!
There was a beef version of the Sichuan simmered dish as well, but pork seemed the better bet, so pork it was!
This one lives up to its name: chilies everywhere! Though the heat is mild again. The proper Sichuan shuizhu dishes are far hotter, I think. On the other hand it is packed with vegetables and eats well, which is a point in its favor!
And last of all, boiled dumplings! Dim sum instead of a rice dish to close. The wrappers have some substance to them, so they fill you up! Fried gyoza are good, but boiled ones have a lovely chew and are delicious too!
So: quick Chinese food with a large group, where the drinking is the main event — for an evening of that sort this is a fine shop. It really is packed on event days, so moving early is surely the wise course. There are plenty of other places around, so next time an event brings me out this way I shall have a look at a different one.
Chin Tan Tan, Kaihimmakuhari Station Front (Chinese / Kaihimmakuhari Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.4
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
