Kobe Beef Yakiniku YAZAWA — Restaurant in Kobe

The food was incredible, the location and local is beautiful, and the servers were kind. I really got no big complains, and I would for sure recommend it.

However there were some complains that did hurt the experience.

First of all is that the staff didn’t speak much English. We asked for really basic things (we don’t except them too keep a fluent convo, because at the end it’s Japan) but it was impossible. it’s a bit frustrating not being understood at all. I get that not everyone speaks English, but in these kinds of restaurants, where there are more foreigners than usual, and where people are leaving a lot of money behind (yes, we do except a better service in more expensive restaurants) staff should at least have a basic knowledge, especially in a service job.

This language barrier continued to give us problems. For example, when ordering, we specifically said we wanted to pay individually, and that it was ok. But when leaving, we were just told it wasn’t possible. When we tried to explain how much we each paid so that they could charge us individually correctly, they just looked at us confused. It would be nice for the staff to make an effort to understand us, rather than look at us with an empty sight. At the end, it’s us, the customers, who have to pay the consequences and get a less pleasant experience. It would be nice for the staff to try to come up with a solution, or an effort at least, rather than just apologizing… especially when we were told something, and then it turned out not to be true!

Then, the staff also forgot our food and we had to remind them of the food we ordered. Again, it’s probably because the language barrier, because when ordering, they barely understood us. But again, it’s bad we have to keep up with them to get our food… Just for context, when I ordered rice and meat, I had to wait half an hour for my rice to come (after the meat had arrived). For sure it can’t take that long? And it would be nice if the food arrived together. Am I supposed to eat the meat alone, and then hang an hour later eat an empty bowl of rice? It’s best to bring together, at least if it takes the same time.

Because of the language barrier, we were also charged an extra beer! Again, the staff was kind, but it seemed that they were rather effortless to come up with solutions and make an effort, and rather used politeness forgiveness to get away. Yes, it’s good to be polite, but it’s also good to do the service properly!

The food and the local is amazing, but if you don’t speak Japanese (like most tourists do) it will...

This place seem to be targeting foreigners by only showing very expensive menu with limited options for beef cuts. It was far from what was shown on their websites. The food was good but the service was shockingly disappointing, especially in a country like Japan. My group of 13 (mix of adults and children) were forced to order drinks for each person even though we only wanted water for the kids as they already had sugary drinks all day long. Despite our best efforts amongst the confusion of not understanding why each person have to have a drink, the waiter just kept pushing until we finally agreed.

The service was very questionable and inconsistent as the waiter seem to only serve food for one of our 3 tables most of the time, leaving the other guests to fend for themselves. Also, when we tried to order more of the inexpensive beef rice bowls, the waiter told us it was "sold out!" He then went on to say we can only order more food from the ¥60,000+ options, even though we could clearly see other tables were served the exact same beef rice bowls we wanted. At that point our group just wanted to finish our food and drinks quickly and leave.

I've personally been to Japan 3 times and by far this was the worst place I've ever been to and I hope they can really improve their customer service and be more honest with their approach to their customers, both foreign and local. No one likes being "ripped off," and if they wanted to target high end customers, they should just be upfront about it in the first place and have their website updated with the more expensive menu items, rather than use this form of bait advertising. My group had spent over ¥105,000 but were left hungry and angry. It was a complete disappointment and I wish we had just walked out before the...

Visited in 2023. We made a reservation online under Gurunavi website (we googled the name of this restaurant booking and this was the only website that allowed booking). Our booking went through since the service crew did ask if we had a reservation and brought us to our seat.

The menu did not show any course set available so we asked about it and the service crew told us it was unavailable and that booking has to be made online. Which we told them there was NO OPTION to indicate course set meal. So since we were not able to try what we came here for, we decided to leave. The service crew STOPPED US and keep telling us that there is a SURCHARGE if we were to leave (about 5000-6000yen per pax if I didnt remember wrongly) and insisted we MUST ORDER SOMETHING. We explained very nicely that our intention was to try the course meal and since it was not available nor allowed on the booking website to select a course meal reservation, we did not think we should pay any form of surcharge. To also add a point here, we visited on a thursday dinner slot 18:30H with ZERO CUSTOMERS there, we were the ONLY TABLE OCCUPIED.

The discussion went back and forth and the more we talked, the more unjust it felt. So eventually, the service crew told us that THEY CANNOT CONTROL THE BOOKING WEBSITE and allowed us to leave. It took about 30 minutes of heated discussion with google translate.

So putting this review here just to warn anyone that wants to make a reservation online via Gurunavi website with the same intention of trying the course meal, PLEASE DO NOT BOOK and save...