Genghis Khan Eijin Bettei Niseko — Restaurant in Kutchan

We were a group of three that opted for the all you can eat lamb, food only course for ¥10,000/ person. I’ll start by saying that, as a person who doesn’t eat a lot of lamb and was pretty intimidated by the thought of eating it, the lamb was pretty good!

And now I’ll explain why I don’t recommend this place: 10% tax AND 10% service fee, which is absurd for the area and Japan. Undisclosed anywhere by the establishment at the time we ordered. Even then, the total they charged us doesn’t add up!!! Our total bill included MORE THAN ¥10,000 in undisclosed and hidden fees!!! for how much we ate, the all you can eat was not worth the value. Ordering the same things a la carte would have been cheaper. ¥8,800 / person to cancel reservation

A few things to clarify: we had 6 drinks (4 beers, 2 highballs) which are the other items in the picture you CAN order just a la carte, but your table is limited to 1 hour no ventilation, the restaurant gets very smoky from BBQ and you WILL smell like lamb oil will splash everywhere on ur table you cook the meet yourself at the table unless you plan to eat an enormous amount, all you can eat course is likely not worth ur money

• they DO NOT provide itemized receipts, probably bc they don’t want people to look too closely. **

final thoughts: TAKE TIME TO CHECK THE MATH. DISPUTE/ASK ABOUT THE EXTRA FEES. Overall the experience and the price were just not worth it! And the additional “taxes and fees” they tack on at the end (that don’t even add up to what we were charged) feel super disingenuous and shady ————————————————————— Edit: I tried to dispute this charge with my credit card. I DID NOT dispute the whole amount or even report as fraud, I just wanted to exclude ~$72 in FEES and still planned to pay the base price of what we ordered and ate. Retrospectively, being honest did not work in my favor. The credit card company took it up with VISA and VISA contacted the restaurant. The restaurant provided my signed copy as my knowing consent to be billed for the original amount. They really doubled down on their fraudulent pricing. Don’t go through the headache I did - the lamb was good but not good enough to call my credit card company 4 times. All the 5 star reviews of this place are very perplexing to me?? And I think they must be paid reviews bc all the detailed descriptions of what people ordered and all the staged photos of the meat look like advertising. If all the 5 star reviews of this place make u feel optimistic, don’t be surprised when they try to scam u when...

The meat quality here is good and the staff does their best, but if you’re planning to get all you can eat, read the rest of this for some pointers. Also, probably don’t come here if you’re vegetarian. There were a couple parties around us with dietary restrictions and it seemed a little hard for them to accommodate (I think they had some ramen options).

Before we get there, a couple pricing things to note. They required us to get one drink per person (we just got oolong tea for 500 yen each). Not sure if this is specifically an AYCE requirement or not. They also added a 10% service charge at the end on top of the final bill.

We got the AYCE lamb and beef combo. It was 19000 yen per person. The way this works was very confusing, and it took us a bit to figure it all out so hopefully this helps. Instead of you ordering from a specific set of meats, they will initially bring out multiple plates with a little of every meat that they offer. This is the “set” and I think you are expected to eat most of this. It’s unclear if they will prevent you ordering more of your “preferred” dishes if you don’t plan to eat it all. We went through about half of the starting meat and then they happily gave us a second plate of A5 short rib. We did eventually eat almost all of the food, though.

Here are some tips for AYCE. The 90m goes relatively fast because you are cooking (they will cook the first dish) and they give you so many plates to start. You have control of the grill temp so I suggest cooking as much as you can on a higher heat and then cutting the larger meats so they can cook evenly, otherwise it will be difficult to cook it all in time. Lots of oil from the fat will accumulate in the middle of the grill. You can ask to exchange the grill plate for a clean one and they will do it. We weirdly asked if they had a way to remove the excess oil (which they did with a paper towel and tongs) but then later a staff member offered us a grill change which we earlier didn’t know was possible / why wouldn’t they offer at that point? The lamb spare rib was also 80% fat but otherwise the meat was of good quality. The lamb shoulder was probably...

So I ate here with my family on a day where we could only order from a special menu that cost 24000 yen per person not including tax, the 5000 yen deposit per person, (the tax was extra 20% or more which was not clearly disclosed) or a drink (which you have to get). It also still costs 24000 yen for children even if they are like, 3. First of all I will start by saying that the food was good. It was all very high quality and very fresh. I really enjoyed the lamb and beef. However, it was all served to you at once which meant our table was crowded with all sorts of meat and sushi and sashimi until the fish went warm and it was no longer nice. And there was not much space. The restaurant was also filled with smoke and there were no hoods to remove the smoke, I ended up having to leave twice for a breather and now all our clothes stink which is unpleasant. There was a family with 3 kids who ended up leaving after paying the 5000Y deposit as they realised it would cost them 72,000Y just for the kids!

And then after the meal you're hit with all these taxes! We ended up paying nearly 1500 USD for the meal for 4 people which is ridiculous. Yes the meat was good but not a 1000 dollar meal level of AMAZING! We ate at a local Michelin restaurant which was cheaper and nicer.

I also have to say the owners childish responses on the 1 star Google reviews should have been a red flag enough to me to not come. However they were all very nice in person and I didn't have a problem with the staff. When we questioned the bill over the price (due to the taxes that ended up being 200 US dollars) we did not get any threats about police or anything, they were all very patient.

All in all it's not a bad restaurant. If you like meat and you can eat a lot, it's fine. If you're like me and you can't, maybe skip this? And if you've got kids.... Definitely skip it. Unless your kid...