Itaru Honten — Restaurant in Kanazawa

Been to Japan for almost 2 weeks and this is probably the worst place we have eaten at. We saw the reviews and decided to check it out. It was a full house when we got there. We waited 5 min and got a table.

PROS: good atmosphere service was fast.

CONS: There is a 300 Yen charge per person but they give you 3 sea snails for appetizer. we ordered the fermented makrel. It was really salty. pickles were okay fried combo. Fish balls were okay, sardine plum egg roll was interesting, and the chicken was too oily. mushroom gratin with crab miso sauce. There was no crab in there. It was a tasteless mushroom pasta with cream of mushroom, the worst thing we had in Japan.

We got Highball (soda and whiskey) and Sake for drinks and it was okay.

We think we ordered the least ordered items on the menu. All in all, it was an evening we wanted to...

I arrived at 17:25 pm for the 17:30 opening on a Tuesday. 3 couples waiting in the queue bench in front of me (6 total people). Doors open at 5:30 and everyone is welcomed inside besides me. I was told it was a 2 hour wait and there is no more room. Continued to sit on the bench for another 10 minutes to search for other restaurants to eat dinner. Still no other customers arrived at this time. Really confused on why I was denied here because they have at least 17 seats at the counter service. Sometimes foreigners feel really like outsiders in Japan. I wonder how the Japanese would like to be treated like this...

We were very lucky to find this place on our walk back from the castle. The food was absolutely incredible and such good value. We had the sashimi, grilled chicken, plum fried chicken (excellent!) and the Japanese omelette.

After finishing the mackerel sashimi they brought us back the deep fried bones of the rest of the fish to eat - and it was absolutely delicious.

The chefs are incredibly skilled and friendly, and the waiting staff are really helpful. This place is 10/10 and I cannot recommend it enough. Great taste and great value. We spent about 4000Y each here but we had dessert and drinks and...