Matsubara-an — Restaurant in Kamakura

Nestled in a neighborhood of Kamukara near Yuigahama station is an old fashioned restaurant with delicious food and an amazing staff.

You must take off your shoes when entering. Inside seating is on the floor and outside is at a table.

Ordered cold soba, with mushroom sauce, seafood tempura melody, omelette and seared duck.

It was all good, then added a scoop of their forage rock salt and each dish truly popped into something special.

Soba was refreshing, light and slight sweet and savory umami flavor from the mushroom sauce. Not personally a fan of the finely minced daikon radish but it was mild and didn’t detract from the meal.

Tempura was lightly fried. Contained shrimp, octopus, sweet potato, seaweed, mushroom and what I thought was a green bean but turned out to be a pepper.

The al a carte omelette came with four pieces tamagoyaki and could be a meal onto itself.

The seared duck was surprisingly cold and tasted reminiscent of pork. It was good, not something I’d...

This is my second time dining here, and I’m very disappointed. The first time I had dinner here and ordered the dinner course, I was very satisfied with everything, especially the service. However, this time, the service was extremely poor.

When we arrived, we were given the English menu and noticed that there was no dinner course listed. We assumed the dinner course was no longer available, so we ended up ordering everything à la carte. Throughout the meal, we communicated with the staff in Japanese.

However, just as we were about to leave, we noticed another table had not only the à la carte menu but also a “Today’s Special” menu. This special menu included the details and pricing for the dinner course. Why didn’t we receive that menu? Was it because we are foreigners? That’s unfair.

In addition, a 5% service charge was added to the dinner, but the staff didn’t even use polite Japanese.

Even though this was the best soba I’ve ever had, I won’t be...

Food & location & interior design are great. BUT DO NOT go with a large group. I went to book for a dinner months in advance for a yoga retreat weekend.

They were not very friendly or accommodating. They have the rule of renting a room (which was fine) but on the actual night they said that everyone had to order a minimum of 4000 Y (information told to guests we didn't want to burden with price as they paid a bulk amount for the whole weekend).

So everyone picked a drink and starter but then the lady came back to say that it was over the 4000Y limit so guests couldn't get their starter.

It just made everything very awkward. It also felt expensive for what we got. Basically I wouldn't go back and I live in Kamakura.

If you do go with a large group, perhaps agree in advance on a possible menu (i.e. 3 options of soba + drink) with them so that guests can order what they wish for without having to worry about the price (and not getting what they...