Kyoto Yakiniku Restaurant Gyurakutei — Restaurant in Kyoto

I'm not sure what's wrong with the reviews of this place even from Tabelog giving this place the number 1 spot for yakiniku, but the meat quality and overall food quality was pretty subpar. The quality of meat is what you'd find from a $10/person all you can eat place in multiple countries that have any kind of Japanese or Korean bbq. I got the middle-level set meal and the pork was tough, the beef's texture was not right, etc. The grill also didn't seem like a proper yakiniku grill as it seemed to cook the meats faster than usual with its heat. I paid $50/person for the set meal, which was a ridiculous price for the low quality. This is really the first time I've felt ripped off in Japan, where all you can find is quality food most of the time. So I was a bit shocked. I complained nicely to the manager and he was nice about it but implied that we cooked the BBQ incorrectly, which is false, since I've been to about a thousand Korean/Japanese/Chinese BBQ places in my life. I ended up cancelling the last course of the meal, which saved me a little money, but I still paid the majority of the meal for low quality meat. The side dishes they gave were also packaged, store-bought quality, which was another indication that the quality of the restaurant was low and not worth the $50/person price. It also made sense why this place was number 1 on Tabelog but none of the reservations were being taken as the dates got closer to my travel dates there. While there were customers in the restaurant, it wasn't packed. Also, the restaurant had a storefront that was easily spotted on the street, instead of tucked away on some high level of a dark building, which was another giveaway that this place was not for locals who expect high quality. I'm just shocked at how the ratings are high on Google and Tabelog but all of the table reservations were available (as we know, all the great places in Japan are booked up way in advance). I would recommend that you find another place, as this place seems to be fishy.

Edit: to the person who responded to my review. While I somewhat appreciate your response, it doesn't pay me back the money I paid for an almost nothing-burger of a meal. I still spent close to $100 and spent my time there and calories as well. I was hoping your manager would refund me the entire meal or give me a large discount but that wasn't the case. We just cancelled the last part of our meal.... So if you really feel sorry, then you would've not let me pay for something that I think you know is low quality...

Was there on a Saturday evening, was told that the restaurant was full. So I made a reservation for 830pm the next day, which was a Sunday. However the condition was that I have to take the course meal. Sure, no problem, I thought.

Staff were a mixed bag, some were very friendly but some others like the lady who took our orders was almost getting impatient communicating with us using Google translation. But hey, we only spoke English and not Japanese and we were trying our best to accommodate the restaurant. But no complaints, we're here for the food, right?

Ok, now on to the food. Let's just say that the wagyu is good, but it is too little, too late.

You recall I said that the restaurant's requirement was that we take the entire course right? Ok here's the thing, I was there with my wife and 3 daughters. I wanted to order the special slices of Wagyu A5 etc. I was told that we can't order the special slices without ordering the course. I mean, from the city where we came from, restaurants costs 3 times that of Kyoto so it is not really about the money, so we took 5 courses.

But the problem is that by the time we finished the course of chicken, pork, Ox tongue and standard cuts.... We hardly have any stomach space for anything else so I gave up on the special cuts that I was intending to order.

I have 3 daughters with tiny stomachs so you can imagine the amount of food i had to help them finish by the end of the meal.

My suggestion is this. Since this is a supposedly high end restaurant, most customers who come in through their doors are willing to spend. Why not just set a minimum spend per room, eg. 35,000yen per room, instead of forcing the entire group to eat an assortment of chicken and pork in a full course which leaves us with no appetite to savour the real wagyu cuts?

The restaurant is otherwise very nice and the ambience is very good. Just tweak their rigid menu rules and it will be perfect, just set a minimum spend and let your guests order what they like, that's my...

Service (do not TLDR) and the Food! This is the best BBQ we've had till date. Unfortunately we're not here long enough, else we would've visited again! There is a one drink per person requirement, the honey plum wine and the plum wine were delicious (my better half doesn't like sweet, still enjoyed both) It does help if more than one person in the group can grill, since the food gets inhaled quickly! Not pictured are the vegetables, the pickled lotus root sprouts were my favorite! Maybe to balance our medium-rare our neighboring booth was perhaps smoking their meats in-situ and their smoke was making its way into ours!

Service: We were lucky to get a same day opening via maps chat feature as the reservation from the website only accepts Japanese phone numbers and requires one's name in hiragana. We really appreciate the call button and their prompt service plus the servers were all patient esp. with us figuring out our drinks!

An important object was lost getting here, they checked our booth for it and then offered to call the taxi company using the taxi receipt. All conversation with me was via the translate app, I would've struggled on the phone doing the same! The cab driver had returned it to the police station! However we would've remembered the food long after we'd forgotten about the...