Western-Style Kobe Beef Amona — Restaurant in Kobe

SHAMEFUL.

This place has a western style restaurant on the first floor and a Japanese style grill on the second. We went to the grill.

It was a table of 10+ with children, 3 families. So we came at different times within 5 minutes. The chef was irritated, and failed to hide it.

Isn’t Kobe beef supposed to melt, ours didn’t. Chewy is the best description.

Aren’t the chef supposed to explain a bit the styles, the cuts, etc … ours did not bother. Not one word and they did speak English.

Actually the chef did his cooking in front of the children. Not bothering to ask if the adults were interested.

Worst, we ordered a bottle of champagne and a French Bourgogne. The two most expensive wines on the menu. After the champagne the chef told us the French wine had run out and offer a Japanese equivalent.

It was horrible, young, fruity, and not at all at the same level, by a huge margin. So bad call on his part. To add insult to injury, I looked at the wine fridge on the way out. There were 2 bottles of the wine we initially wanted to order. In plain view.

The chef had clearly misled us to sell his 3rd rate, overpriced, mediocre Japanese wine.

This is my 10th time in Japan, and this is without a doubt the worst I have ever been serviced.

Go anywhere else in Japan, but give this...

Everything about Amona was fabulous. We traveled in Kobe on Saturday and looked for a place to have Kobe beef for dinner. Other restaurants were only taking reservations. We stumbled upon Amona at around 8:00 PM and went in. Chiharu Hiraoka, one of the servers, explained to us patiently that the restaurant was divided into two floors. The top floor served more traditional steaks, and the bottom floor served more Western-style food. The top floor was packed, and closing time was 9:00. However, there was a space available on the first floor, so we sat down. Chiharu went above and beyond to make us feel welcome and informed. She explained the best cuts of beef and the recommended way to cook them. I ordered the 120 oz. steak, medium rare, as recommended. When the food came out, Chiharu told me to eat the first piece without any sauce. The steak tasted like butter - it just melted in my mouth. Now I understand why Kobe beef is so prized - it's unlike any other meat you've ever eaten. This place is 5 stars all around, and Chiharu made it even better. If you're in Kobe, definitely pay them a visit. You won't be...

We just visited for dinner, excited to eat Kobe beef in Kobe. We asked to eat upstairs but we were told it was full, so we took a table downstairs. However we did not see one person come down the stairs and afterwards when we stepped outside, we saw the empty tables.

We ordered some very expensive Kobe steak, but it was terrible. It had pieces of gristle and the cuts of meat were poor and definitely not Kobe sirloin.

We had previously eaten Kobe beef in Kyoto and this was so much better than what we had tonight. And this was the most we had spent on a meal our entire time in Japan (over 30,000 yen), and we were literally spitting it out as it was so bad.

We can only surmise that because the upstairs restaurant was closed, there were no proper chefs in attendance and someone else found some beef and cooked it up and tried to pass it off as top shelf.

We tried to complain when we were leaving, but the waitress claimed she didn't speak English and fobbed us off.

Very...