Kushiya Monogatari — Local services in Himeji

Amazing place to have fun frying some battered vegetables and meats with a sweets and fondue buffet.

The good: There is a good variety of vegetables to choose from and these are all assembled neatly on sticks. Take what you want, the burdock sticks are the best in my opinion; they give off such an sweet and earthy taste! The deep fried green pepper is not spicy at all and I found myself devouring 3 sticks. You can do the frying however you like. I prefer mine without batter, but this only works best for vegetables that crisp up and won't absorb much oil (burdock, lotus roots potatoes, pumpkins). For the mushrooms and eggplants, it's better to coat them in a batter to prevent them from soaking up too much cooking oil. There is a salad bar though the vegetables and dressings are limited. I'd go for the cheese sauce at the sauce counter and drizzle it over my salad vegetables, it sure beats the usual sesame dressing. Though I'm not a fan of sweets, I was surprised by the quality of their matcha sweets. The warabi mochi was counted generously in matcha powder and had a well balanced taste between bitterness and sweetness. Even the matcha swiss roll was not as sweet as I expected. The cream puff had matcha fresh cream filled and did not taste cheap or custardy at all. Even the cream puffs at the fondue counter had fresh cream piped in them, which was lovely. I'd expected them to be dry and hard. The white chocolate matcha fondue was a little sweeter than the dark chocolate fondue, which was bittersweet and decadent. The mangoes were deliciously frozen and I love adding them in my salad. I also enjoyed the seasoned rice they had, which you can make a small dish of Ochazuke with.

The bad: Oil splattered all over especially if you are frying shrimps or scallops. The processed meats were overly salted and seemed low quality. The fresh meat were cut in very small strips and they shrank upon contact with hot oil, and you later feel like you are chewing a piece of charred rubber meat. I find the size of some of the ingredients a waste of skewers. Like two of us consumed about 50-60 skewers. If the portions attached to the skewers were larger, lesser skewers could have been used. I find it sad that the restaurant has to discard so many skewers at the end of each day.

The soft serve ice cream had ice crystals and was overly sweet. I'd recommend that you save the calories. The noodle bar with jjampong also looked pretty sad and cold with greasy noodles and not much else.

The cost: About 3900 JPY for 2pax lunch

It's a casual and fun place to catch up with friends while practicing your deep frying chops. Would 100% recommend to ladies who love greasy and sweet foods. Would...

I think the all-you-can-eat meal is perfect, since the deliciousness makes it a worth dying for and slightly awesome experience. (⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠) The oil was damaged however, so it might just be my personal experience, still worth it if there's a short wait and you have some kids with you. 乁⁠[⁠ᓀ⁠˵⁠▾⁠˵⁠ᓂ⁠]⁠ㄏ The chocolate fondue is wonderful more than any other I've ate though......

I tried this for the sake of the novelty… ended walking out smelling like oily pork. The restaurant doesn’t provide refresher spray.. The oil they used doesn’t look that clean… it’s pretty dark when we dined there at 1pm..

The good is their price point. Cheap buffet for 90mins including drinks and dessert. Good if u have...