Yamagami Syokudou NEO — Restaurant in Hakuba

When we arrived at the restaurant, there was a queue in front of us. This is fine. People queuing were waiting inside the restaurant and we were told to put our name on a waiting list. Once done, we were told to wait outside (temperature was below 0 and freezing cold) /!. After waiting OUTSIDE for 20 minutes, we realized the staff was super busy dealing with customers and probably didn't realize we were freezing cold, so we entered in the restaurant and asked again what was the status and wether we could wait inside. Staff told us it would be ok to stay inside (finally...). Then we waited for another 10 minutes and realized the staff didn't come to us. We went to one waiter and asked him how much more time we should wait, his answer: 30 minutes. We decided to leave and go to another restaurant. We thought it was a bad joke. If we didn't ask the staff several time about the waiting status, they would have made us wait 1 hour outside in a freezing cold temperature. There was no language barrier as we had Japanese speakers in the group. We had bad experience interacting with the staff and we do not recommend this...

Cozy atmosphere. English speaking Western servers are very friendly.

Comfortable space good sized table which is important if you plan on grilling (yakiniku) since it splatters oil pretty far. They changed the grills from what I could tell from photos here. This causes a bit more splatter than the old style ones.

Must try the Harumon which is mainly pig organ meats. I believe kidney, stomach, large intestine and even small intestine. They stopped translating those probably because of squeamish Western patrons. Serving is 500 grams which is good for 4 people or more. They offered a 200 gram portion for us 3 people.

Not a fan of the mixed sausages. The pork is really good but fatty. The beef skirt steaks are good too. Definitely get the gyoza. Grill and gyoza great with cold alcoholic drinks.

Best to go early before the crowds and definitely need to book. We went at 5pm and it was empty but filled...

Good food, great service but not worth wait.

Arrived around 6pm, waited 45min before getting a seat for 4 pp. Ordered party gyoza, miso bamboo pork ramen and pepper ramen. Gyoza looks very cool, but taste is not flavourful / fresh and skin of gyoza cooked nicely but not crispy on the lattice. Ramen had delicious soup flavour, generous amount of noodles, but pork taste bland. They also do japanese BBQ but have with poor ventilation, so the room was very stuffy / hot (and i run cold usually), even tho its snowing outside. Price is competitive to other ramen nearby. Service is great, attentive and helpful. I might go back for the ramen but only if I had to wait 5-10...