DAIKAN IZAKAYA (Belgisches Viertel) — Restaurant in Cologne

I was hesitating posting this review but I have seen other people saying the same about the staff so I feel like I have to let people know about my experience here.

I have visited this place at least 4 times. All 4 times were unpleasant. My fault for giving them another chance every time. Last time I was there, we had to wait 20 minutes for a table. They have a bar where you can sit and order drinks so we asked if we could sit down there and order a drink while we waited for a table. The waitress said no, that we could not order drinks nor food from the bar (there was a german lady ordering drinks and food at the bar and there were two empty seats next to her) and that we needed to wait outside in the cold (it was -6 degrees outside). After 5 minutes of waiting, we saw that I couple (that looked German) stood up and left so we thought we were going to get that table. However, after 10 minutes of waiting for them to call us, I went in and asked if we could get that table. They said no, that they were not allowed to place anyone there (which made no sense, since there were just two people sitting there). After us, there were two girls (blonde, blue eyes.. not that this usually matters but it's a key detail for this matter) also waiting for a table. 15 minutes later, a (what looked like a east asian couple) stood up from the sushi bar and left. The waitress gave us the two chairs from the sushi bar and then gave the blonde, blue-eyed girls, the table that had been empty and cleaned 10 minutes before. We of course asked (again) if we could sit at that table, since we were there FIRST. A waitress gave us one excuse, and then when speaking to the manager, she gave us another completely different excuse.

I am not the person to be bothered by the way staff treats their customers because everyone has bad days but you could really tell this was a matter of the way I looked. I was there with my boyfriend, who is German, and they were only wanting to talk to him and not acknowledging me, even when I was speaking in German with them.

So no, I won't be eating here anymore. The food might be nice but the staff is rude, borderline racist and the food always takes 30-60minutes to arrive. It even arrives cold, which leads me to believe they do...

FOOD & DRINKS The menu is compact and has some Japanese classics to choose from. I asked for a recommendation and picked a Miso TanTan Ramen and a Katsu Bao. The beef ribs also catched my interest but I couldn't resist to try out the Ramen and with that there was no stomach room left for the ribs. Plus my last beef rips experience (not in this restaurant) wasn't that great. The ramen really looked and tasted authentic! They hit the flavours and the ramen egg was done well. Maybe a tad too salty but it was marinated and cooked properly which I can't even say for some Japanese run ramen restaurants in Germany. The Katsu Bao reminded me of China meets Japan meets Vietnam meets Korea. The Bao (China) fluffy and slightly sweet, the Katsu (Japan) crispy, the sweet sour pickeled carrot and fresh cilantro (Vietnam) and finally the Kimchi (Korea) for a sour spicy note. The homemade ice tea was good too.

SERVICE A bunch of cool and friendly guys were rockin this place during my visit. I was the first one to arrive for lunch and expected the service to be fast. No complaints.

ATMOSPHERE Industrial and modern look. A dark color theme with some Japanese pictures on the wall and an open kitchen. I like it.

RATING So why just four stars? First I wanted to give full five stars but the last star to me is something personal. The restaurant needs to scream amazing to me and unfortunately it didn't. Everything was really good. The ramen was even better than some Japanese run places I have been to. The problem to me is not the food. It is the flair. The restaurant and its menu wants to sell their customers Japan. The food is there but I just don't get the Japanese vibes and this has nothing to do that none of them was Japanese. You can sell the Japanese feel without being Japanese. It starts with the decoration. While they had some elements they were kinda lost. This restaurant could be anything really. The atmosphere didn't emit Japanese vibes of an Izakaya either. I still can recommend this place and will come back...

Nice atmosphere but completely overpriced!

We went to Daikan for my birthday on a Monday night and were surprised how empty it was. Staff greeted us friendly and even prepared a bowl of water for our dog.

However, as soon as we sat down, the service was a bit over very eager to serve us and came twice without giving us enough time to choose.

We ended up ordereing a Misu Ramen, three Tapas and (afetr the waitress insisted that wasn't enough) a plate of Nigiri to share. The Ramen was delicious, however it was very small and contained almost no trace of the chicken meat and only half an egg. For €9.80 definitely WAY overpriced! The three tapas were tasty and fresh. But especially the chicken wings were totally oversold by the waitress. (We've both had very good chicken wings before and these although tender were nor as tasty and very very fatty.) Unfortunately, the menu is very limited and you can't handpick the Nigiri. For €16.50 for the plate. I would've expected some exciting and great tasting food. But, it was neither fresh nor very interesting. Out of the 9 pieces, four were vegetarian (mango, avocado, soy, forgot the other one) and the others were off-the-shelf fish (2 seared salmon, 1 rare salmon, 1 seared tuna, 1 rare tuna). As you could see by the seaweed they were wrapped in and the dull look, I'm guessing they had been lying around for the whole day (definitely NOT FRESH)! The Quality was definitely not reflected in that price.

For drinks, we had one beer each, at €6.50 for a 0.5l Asahi, definitely not cheap either!

All throughout dinner, the waitress kept coming back to check on us. For us, that was just too many times and of course, as soon as we were finished, they took a while...