Gion Shoten, Kyoto Kawaramachi — Restaurant in Kyoto

My partner and I were excited to try it this “all you can eat” restaurant as we had a reservation planned for our holiday and the first reviews we saw seemed good… as soon as we entered the place we weren’t even greeted, instead just reluctantly taken to our table, instantly the atmosphere was off and majority of the staff were rude.

Food: we were waiting for 20 minutes because the piece of paper we got handed stated that you cannot order the all you can eat menu until you receive your appetiser which we never received, instead we just just tried ordering on the QR code to see if it would work, because we couldn’t get the attention from any staff even though the restaurant was basically empty and they just ignore you, when we finally received some food it was horrible, the nigiri sushi was warm and the rice was so chewy, the chicken skewers were so so fatty, the fried chicken was stone cold as soon as we got it and it was drowning in grease.

Drinks: we ordered 2 drinks each one lemon sour and 1 melon sour each, it took at least 10 minutes to get the drinks even with an empty restaurant which was a red flag in itself. The drinks had literally no alcohol, I’m a light weight and usually after 2 drinks I’m tipsy or at least feeling something but they did nothing at all.

Atmosphere: the worst atmosphere in any restaurant I’ve ever been in, Kyoto is a lovely place and every place we have ever been to eat has been so so respectful and polite but this restaurant is so far from polite, you don’t even get a knowledged, a group of young people came in and it was quite noisy and stank of cigarettes, I’ve also seen a lot of reviews stating that the restaurant is smoking friendly and this isn’t stated anywhere on the restaurants website or anything so I wouldn’t take kids there or go there at all if you can’t stand the smell of tobacco while you’re trying to eat.

When we received some more different fried chicken because we couldn’t eat the first lot because it was cold, we had the same problem again so we got up and went to the till, we translated to the girl and she said don’t worry I will wave the bill, this was the only good thing about this...

Avoid this restaurant!!! THE Worst dining experience, the worst attitude I’ve had in Japan, and possibly all over the world-

ATTITUDE: I would rate negative. I’m shocked by one of the female staff’s attitude. There are many restrictions and there is no English menu. We first asked why our reservation name says three hours but they only allow only two hours arbitrarily, she simply pointed to the Japanese text and almost shouted at us. We thought there is a different QR code for English menu and asked for it but again was rejected very bluntly. She refused to translate to us and when I said I don’t understand, she yelled at me “No English”…

Food: limited choices, not as many as 170 types. Only chicken thighs and chicken skin. Very oily. Only edible.

Environment: dirty and greasy floor. The restaurant is very empty. Not sure what went wrong. How did it get 4.2??? Should be 2.4

Price: we chose 4000/person for two people, sounds a good deal for buffet but it is STILL not worth it given the poor quality and variety. They tried to charge 9000 instead of 8000. But we realized the booking price already includes tax and requested them to change the total. Almost tricked there too.

If environment and food are still tolerable at least… the attitude has really upset me and made me want to leave. I felt like I’m not respected at all.

I’m really sorry if you booked this restaurant by mistake and had the same experience. This shouldn’t...

The worst food I’ve ever eaten in any country I’ve been to the “fresh” sushi was warm!!! All the chicken was stone cold just felt like it had been re heated and still covered in grease. The floor was filthy and even worse our bowls on our table had grease and grime all over them. Not to mention the attitude of the staff was terrible there male at the door very rudely showed us to our table.

Straight way when they pretty much opened they were sold out of half the all you can eat menu which is strange.

The drinks were terrible aswell pretty much no alcohol in them. Please do not come here and also pay no attention to the 5 star review as they are most likely fake.

We got handed rules on the all you can eat menu which they will bring you a try of appetisers which cost 1000 yen per person which they don’t tell you till the end and still got added to the bill even though it never came. After waiting 30 minutes nothing came and we also got told we could not order till the appetisers came which they never did.

We ended up ordering drinks and they came then the food we ordered also came so I was very confused what went on there. The salmon was more chewy than a car tyre but I still ate it because I didn’t want to be rude.

The only positive thing that came out of tonight was me refusing to pay the bill and the waitress agreed and apologised other then that it was the worst experience I’ve...