Kobe Beef Teppanyaki Restaurant Mikinao — Restaurant in Kobe

We had dinner at Kobe Teppanyaki Mikinao. I’d start saying that we didn’t plan to eat in this restaurant but the place was recommended by the owner of the Kobe restaurant we wanted to go (which was just downstairs, and the owner walked us right into this restaurant instead) so we decided to give it a try: the restaurant is on the third floor and has only a few seats. Once seated, the chef took a few minutes to explain all the different type of Kobe beef available: I found him a little bit too pushy on ordering the “Premium” beef which cost 32000¥ for 120g. We ended up trying some less premium meat, but still quite expensive as for a total of 240g of meat we spent more than 16.000¥. The chef asked how we wanted the meat and cooked it in front of us. They added plenty of salt and pepper on it (without asking us). A miso soup and small salad were included with the meat. Once the meat was ready, the chef kept asking how was the meat which didn’t really help us enjoy the dinner. I’d have preferred a little more intimacy instead of having a person watching me eating 😅. We tried Kobe meat before and we didn’t like it here: meat was not as tasty or tender as in other places we tried but the prices were much higher. It was just really nothing special. We were able to pay by card.

The place seemed to be populated only by tourists - literally everyone that was there before/after us was a foreigner. It did feel a bit like a tourist trap, as the meat wasn’t as good as other Kobe beefs were tried, but definitely much more expensive.

We would...

We were able to get a reservation here last minute and when we came (3rd floor btw), we were greeted by the chef and a staff member who were SUPER NICE. They explained the menu to us, making sure that we understand which part of the meat came from and what’s included in the price (salad, miso and rice). The room was very clean, I loved the music, the bathroom was immaculate. But we’re here to talk about the star of the night, the Kobe beef! We got a sirloin and rare part, which were on the expensive side but it was soooo worth it. My husband who is a grill expert, said that one of the meat was textbook perfect for medium rare. The meat melted in your mouth, the salad was really good, the chef recommended that we eat the meat with wasabi which I didn’t know you could do that and that changed my life. They were both so, so kind to us. They spoke very good English and took such good care of us from the moment we came in. we’re not in Kobe very often, but if we did we’d be happy to come back here...

This is the first time I've given a bad review to a restaurant in Japan. It offers absolutely no value for money and is simply not worth the price. The beef is tough and dry.

Taste: The beef was extremely tough. They didn't even ask us how we wanted it cooked, and ours was very well-done and tough. I saw that other people's beef was tender. It's expensive, the meat is tough, and it's not tasty at all. There's absolutely no value for money. We had to force ourselves to eat such expensive beef.

Service: The meat was served, but they didn't bring us rice. I had to ask for it myself. There was only one bowl of rice with miso soup. Were we supposed to eat plain rice after finishing the meat?

It really offers no value for money. I'll never trust Rednote again; it's all about gaining traffic. You have to see for yourself which restaurant is good before going in. The people on Xiaohongshu are just shamelessly hyping things up.

Value for money: Extremely low. Not...