HISUI — Restaurant in Kyoto

Come for the spaghetti, stay for the waiting.

If this place looks like a trip into the past, you’d be right because apparently time stands still here. We waited over an hour and a half for a plate of spaghetti and coffee, which tasted like noodles and strawberry jam. The young men there are also apparently time travelers because they move like old men; there’s nothing resembling urgency here, except to only come by your table right after you’ve finished your food. After being made to wait an ungodly amount of time for a quick cafe meal, there was no acknowledgement, much less an apology from the staff. This place used to be good, but something has gone terribly wrong. I would especially warn tourists who are on a limited schedule against wasting half of their day here. Unfortunately, the question for this place went from “when can we come back,” to “what happened?”

Maybe they think customers will be too busy looking at the decor to notice the empty table in...

Look, I know this place. Over the past 5 years I have been here several times, and what used to be a real kissaten checking all the boxes, now became an attraction where staff think customers won’t mind waiting 1,5 hours (no joke) for one coffee and a spaghetti. No communication as to why, or even an apology when the food did finally arrive was shared which left me feeling unacknowledged as a customer and made me really wonder what happened with the management since COVID-19. Unfortunately, this is not the Hisui I...

This is the Japanese equivalent of an old school American diner. They serve a bargain morning set (breakfast that includes coffee, toast, salad and hard boiled egg). For lunch and dinner the 'Omrice' (omelette over rice) is very popular. They open early and close late. You can sit here for hours and do your thing: read the paper, play on your phone, work on your Laptop, read manga, and chat with a friend. The waitresses will keep bringing you cold water and never hint that it's...