Kobe Beef YAZAWA Hankyu Sannomiya Store — Restaurant in Kobe

A decade separates our first and second visit to this Kobe beef restaurant, and the food still tastes as premium and outstanding as ever. This time we had steaks for lunch. The "comparison" steak set is highly recommended, allowing one to see, and savour the different cuts. How well the beef is done is defined differently at Yazawa and specially to preserve the sweetness of the meat. We ordered medium-well-done though the meat looks like rare to medium-rare in other restaurants. However, we totally love the taste of the beef and completely trust the chef at Yazawa in how to cook the beef, Eating the beef really transcends all senses. The taste of the champion Kobe beef is elegantly rich, yet light and truly deserves it's namesake and award for being the top 3 wagyu beef in the whole of Japan. From the cuts to the style of cooking to the condiments to the type of suitable drinks to accompany the beef, the people at Yazawa really know their craft, and what is to fully experience such fine beef. This is excellent service from the heart!

Reservations get you a special place in the restaurant and we sat at the exact spot twice. The interior follows a rock and roll decor and ambience, decorated with memorabilia of a very popular Japanese rock star by the name of Eikichi Yazawa (and that's where the name of the restaurant comes from). The soft music playing in the background does not distract from the high end dining. We were served by Masashi Hattori who spoke basic English but was polite and pleasant. A slight misstep is that the wines should have been recommended. It's only when I read the restaurant website did I realise how much attention has been put into pairing only appropriate wines and water with Kobe beer. Overall, a quintessential experience of dining is worth coming back again and again.

One final note on the restaurant's location. We used the spiderman figure as a landmark but note that there is another Kobe beef restaurant also with a spiderman figure. Don't go to the wrong place! Also, note that there is another Kobe beef restaurant by a similar name of "'Yazawa Yakiniku Honten". Simply remember this restaurant is near Sannomiya and hence, its name...

Very disappointing service. This is the most expensive meal I spent in Japan. However the staff is not very helpful and one of the staff ( a senior Japanese lady) is super unfriendly. This is not something to expect in Japan, not saying I came all the way to Kobe for a luxury wagyu meal on my birthday with my friends from Europe and Asia. I felt so embarrassed that I picked this restaurant.

We came with a group of 5, while we are deciding the order, the staff urged us to confirm quicker if we want sukiyaki, as it takes time for the kitchen to prepare. Actually we don't understand why we have to rush for ordering food, and the shop staff also didn't offer much assistance for ordering . This is already disappointing.

We ordered 2 sukiyaki set first per the shops request and discuss on other menu. One Japanese (senior) lady came to our table and warn us that we cannot only order 2 sets for a table of 5. We are so shocked. We were being coprporative to order sukiyaki fast, while we are still struggling for the remaining orders. She also chased us to confirm the rest of the order.

Understood there may have ordering rules / time limit for the restaurant. However the attitude and language from this staff is super unfriendly and made me & my friends uncomfortable. The service of other staff are fine however the mood of our meal was ruined. We have provided the feedback to another staff but there is no follow up action.

For the sukiyaki, the young Japanese lady staff only served us for the first round and no information on how to cook by ourselves. However,she seems not familiar with sukiyaki, part of the beef sticked on the pan, wasted the expensive meat.

In terms of food, I ordered sukiyaki, steak and sushi . The overall quality is not bad . Rare part was good but red cut is a bit overcooked...feels like a bit wasted. This is different from what we expected.

We are so upset that we didn't even took a group picture for our last...

We went to their 4.9 rated sister restaurant down the road (Genkichi) that couldn’t seat 7 of us. They were kind enough to phone and check availability at this restaurant, then walk us here. We were excited as we researched the other restaurant and expected similar. It was 95 degrees outside, so we didn’t have time to keep walking around and thanked our luck. On a side note, we just came from Nagasaki where we were turned away from 7 restaurants in a row, so we were definitely getting the feeling of being profiled by all the nicer sit-down restaurants at this point.

When we sat down, the prices here were so high that we begrudgingly spent over $1000 on their mid-priced cuts. We only live once and steak was the purpose of our day trip to Kobe, so we went ahead and ordered.

We were extremely disappointed at the quality of the meat compared to other steak experiences we’ve had in Japan. I’ve eaten better ribeyes from Costco at home.

What got us mad was when we left, there were popup signs outside for lunch specials - we could have fed everyone a similar meal for about $150 in total. When we asked about why that menu wasn’t presented to us we got “sold out” - but it was the same cuts of meat, miso soup, small salad and rice we just paid over $1000 for.

Overall, the meal wasn’t bad if it was a $25 meal, the steak was served on plates so it got cold quick though. I recommend where you cook your own or they cook it for you so it’s hot when you eat it.

Generally we are really angry for being completely...