Shoya Maruhachi — Restaurant in Hakuba

We were super excited to try the hot pot but oh holy moly how disappointing.

Service was decent but barely no English despite it is a tourist destination.

Pricing was for Japan rather high, so expectations were also quite high. We were served a miso soup as soon as we sat down. Nothing special. Just some soggy cabbage in it.

2 hot pots were ordered. The meat was tasteless. The bouillon didn’t have any taste at all. Really, at all. Felt like dishwater, just like the miso.

There was only meat for one person, we were two hungry guys after a day skiing. Some greens, the sprouts were nice but the rest rather basic. Asked for the sobas to finish it off. They were also really basic and boring.

So after a rather bland dinner my partner decided to order a dessert to finish this party off. Which was served in the middle of the chaos that is after a hot pot dinner with plates, bowls and a huge hot pot in the middle of the table.

They didn’t even manage to clean the table before serving a dessert… which also was expensive for Japan and rather boring taste.

We asked to pay. And received a hefty bill. Not sure what everything was (google translate helped out) we saw that they had added a service charge of 10%, which sometimes at tourist traps in Japan does happens but it is ALWAYS informed about it in advance. Oh well, we could comply with that. But then found out about a 1000 Yen charge for the two miso soups - appetizers called on the bill. 500Yen each. We questioned it and they simply just asked us to pay. We informed them that we never ordered them. At that point we were quite fed up with the whole situation. They said it was restaurant standard for them to serve the appetizer. I informed them via google translate that we cannot read about it in their menu. We also said that there is no information about the 10% service charge. Which is ok but still 10%.

The girl went away a third time and a snorky old lady came back with a new bill without the miso-soups aka appetizers. We felt like two unwanted guests and left the establishment really disappointed with the whole experience and 9000yen less in the pocket.

A place like this really need to deliver. The atmosphere is nice and the restaurant itself is super genuine and nice. But food, service and pricing a...

Was looking promising. Got a booking and service was pretty quick.

Ordered some hot pot for 2 and some chicken balls for the kids. Also asked if they had rice and was told no so just got some noodles for them to share.

First up came out some miso which was really nice. I mean they brought 4 bowls out and we thought it was part of the experience. turns out those 4 bowls of miso which the kids didnt touch theirs cost us $20 on their own. Only found this out when we went to pay.

The amount of meat we got for 2 on the hot pot was 100g at best. probably less.

The hot pot was flavourless and i made the broth a bit better by adding the soy sauce into it.

All up 3 drinks. chicken balls. and hot pit for 2 with noodles cost $100 (10,000yen) nearly died at that bill in all honesty. charging for the miso was taking the piss.

Would never recommend. honestly thought we would get a bowl each for...

Honestly not sure about the good reviews here on google. They got our reservation wrong and claimed we cancelled our reservation on the phone, although we were eventually seated. The restaurant is understaffed - dishes were served in a timely manner but you can tell the staff had to run catering to all sorts of requests. By the time we left, the dining room was full of tables with dishes stacked all over the place and none of the tables were cleared, which is frankly quite a surprise, especially in Japan. Dishes were a hit-or-miss, some of them just unauthentic. The restaurant is converted from an old building, which is a nice concept, but with this price-quality ratio, there are better dining...