Ebisutei — Restaurant in Kutchan

Local guides giving 5 stars. Were they given a free meal? I didnt have a good experience. We were a party of 4. We had a booking. I arrived feeling extremely dehydrated so I asked for some water. I was given a small bottled water and the waitress impatiently said...all of you must order drinks and the water not free. I said sure but can we have a look at the menu first?? She then walks over to her Co workers said something to them with all of them staring at us and giggling and shaking their heads. The food... Its my second year in the area and honestly...there are much better restaurants around. I didnt ask for the bill when the same waitress brings me a small yellow paper with 5 digits on it. She said it's the bill.

I was taken aback...I asked for the breakdown...she said it's for the chefs not for me. I explained that it's normal for a restaurant to give a detailed receipt! She walks over to her Co workers again rolling her eyes. Never mind that...her calculations were wrong! She used a calculator and got it wrong 3 times coming in with different total amounts. I then wonder how many tourist has over paid at this restaurant without seeing a proper receipt but just a yellow paper with a...

Lovely little Izakaya in Hirafu town. We had so many dishes I had to think long and hard about which my favourites were. Food in order of deliciousness.

The place is tiny so book ahead. Shot of the exterior Never say no to thick cuts of sashimi. This Maguro looked especially nice. 4/5. Garlic Beef hot plate. It actually wasn't tender but the flavour was really good. Juicy and fatty umami. Basic house salad with yummy tomatoes. Super refreshing. Deep fried octopus bites. Yum. Prawn tempura was actually pretty good too. Nice meaty prawn I always enjoy tofu salad. Served cold and clean tasting. These deep fried sweet corn was unexpectedly good. Jap oysters were fresh but lacked creaminess. Grilled beef tongue. Amazing texture. Grilled salmon belly was really good, and dripping with fat One thing I noticed about Saba fish in Japan. I much prefer the Singapore ones which are frozen and salty. The texture here is better but the flavour is blander and loaded with too many small bones to enjoy Suntory my regular go to drink when in Japan. A funny sign in how to enjoy Niseko / rules...

We booked for a 6:30pm reservation and read that they have a 10 minute grace policy for people being late. We rushed as fast as we could through icy, snowy roads and walked in the door at 6:41 (11 minutes late) after calling several times earlier to let them know we were going to be a few minutes late. They never answered the phone and had already given our table away. The table already had drinks and food hitting the table, which means they certainly didn’t actually wait 10 minutes as they said they would. We also booked with our phone number, like pretty much every other restaurant on earth, so if they were giving our table away, they could have called to tell us that. We would have loved to try it and did our best to make it, but they are clearly poor operators and can’t manage their systems well. To make matters worse, it was Christmas and pretty much every other place in Niseko was booked full. So convenient store Christmas dinner for us....