Ashinoko Chaya — Restaurant in Hakone

Atrocious service ! (Handling of child with celiac disease)

A child had a severe gluten intolerance and couldn‘t eat meat that has a sauce on it. After asking politely if it is possible to get the meat on the menu without the sauce, they refused. After discussing what kind of other possible solutions they can offer, the waitress became more and more spiteful and asked the customer to leave the restaurant, even if they already were sitting at the table and had ordered edamame and other things. So as some of the food was already served, the customer tried to make the best out of the situation and said they will eat what is already served. But then the boss came and asked them to leave. The staff are not willing to make slight changes on the menu for a child who has an allergy, even if they do not have to make something special and have only to serve the same as on the menu but without sauce.. In the end the child just ate the edamame and some rice from his mother's portion. Because they also refused to just give the child some white rice…

There was a Japanese speaking person in the group. So there where no missunderstanding in culture or language. Just very bad hospitality, which is very uncommon...

Food is one star, service is negative 5 star. If this place has no service then I would give 0 star. But this place actually has negative service that only makes customers unpleasant and uncomfortable constantly. There are only three options in the menu, and the food quality is well below average you can find in a random place in Tokyo, but at doubled the price.

We have a small kid so we only ordered for the adults. As I mentioned they only have three items and no kid menu. The waitress old lady came and emphasized that no food is allowed to share. Wtf? They have self-serve snacks and the lady came multiple times to check on us to ensure that we were not sharing food. At a later time my kid was eating a fruit from their backpack and the lady showed up again and insisted that "no outside food" and this is a rule in Japan. During the 40min dinning period we only saw tourists from North America and Europeans and no apparently local customers. We really regretted that we came to this place and waisted 5000yen.

The only ok thing about this place is that, since there are so few customers, it is relatively quiet. You also got a view of the lake, and that's it. Please do yourself a favor and do not...

I went to this restaurant last year and had fond memories so I went straight to the restaurant after a year. However, it has changed a lot. It's still crowded and needs to wait for about 20min be seated. But the food was a bit disappointing and pricing. Now the food are kind of pre-cooked. It's more efficient but that's not what you expect from a seemingly upscale restaurant. And the is nearly no service - self-service even for payment. And I can't say that the staff are friendly. It's a shame and I wouldn't recommend it to...