Izakaya Koharuya — Restaurant in Kutchan

This was a very traditional Japanese restaurant that seats 24. The decor and ambience was very nice and cozy, very suitable for a hearty warm winter meal. We made a reservation for 2 people at 8:30pm and ordered 6 dishes - clan in sake soup, salmon sashimi, chicken gizzard yakitori, chicken tendon yakitori, grilled squid, and home made gyoza.

Unfortunately, the taste of the food did not have the wow factor we were expecting. Service was extremely slow and we received our first dish at 9:30pm. This was the clam in sake soup. It was very tasty and the best dish of the night. The soup was light and flavourful and the flesh in the clams were plump. The salmon sashimi was next to arrive at 9:50pm. It was nothing special and I could get better sashimi in Australia. Even worse, there were bones in the salmon sashimi - see upper right corner of plate (3 pin bones). We did not confront the restaurant as that would further delay other dishes. The grilled squid was well cooked, but there was no marinade or sauce. It would add so much more flavour if there was one. The house made gyoza came next and it tasted alright but nothing special. Finally, the yakitori came. The meat was well grilled, but the sauce was so salty we could not take it. Perhaps it’s the Hokkaido way, but it ruined the flavour. Overall, we rushed out at 10:20pm because we had to make the shuttle back to the hotel.

Total eating time: 10 mins because we were so hungry.

Total waiting time: 1 hour 40 mins

Was it worth that wait? Certainly not given the food was certainly...

Had a rough time at Koharuya in Lower Hirafu Village.

Booked for 5 but got accused of no-showing for a 6th spot by one rude waitress, with a 5k Yen fee hanging over our heads.

When we tried to clear things up with her, she kept giving us black face and insisted that we owed this fee and that it was clearly stated on table check. She even refused our request to simply order 5k yen more of food.

This mess dragged on till nearly end of dinner, thanks to one waitress who wouldn’t let up until we showed proof. Got a sorry in the end, but that’s about it. Rest of the staff was nice and professional, and the food is decent but this one incident left a bad taste.

Watch out for the one waitress who is fluent in English when you...

This is a very small cozy restaurant, so to avoid disappointment make a booking, we were very luck that the first time we went the could fit us at the bar. We ordered a few dishes to share, it was all really good and we got to speak to the staff as they were getting drinks. I have read some people saying about the wait for food, we were there probably about 1.5 hours for a meal, for us it was good as we had a small break between dishes, rather then everything coming at once or one after the other. I would highly recommend this for good Japanese food, and definitely...