Manshige Shoan - Kyoto Porta — Restaurant in Kyoto

Coming from a huge delay in the shikansen service, I was pretty hungry and saw that there wasn't a queue at this restaurant. The displays of the food sets were also pretty attractive. I got the Hana set meal (¥2500), and also upgraded the soup for ¥200 to one where the soup is boiled in an earthenware teapot. This was a Kyoto style bento with some simmered foods. While I wasn't particularly sure of what I was eating, the foods came in different textures and a variety of tastes, so my tastebuds were always piqued. The dessert item was dengaku which had a mochi like texture with a sweet and salty miso paste on it. Overall a decent meal, but my only complaint was that the meal was almost vegetarian, with only small pieces of fish or the tempura prawn...

TLDR: great food, reasonable prices, but poor customer service from one specific staff

Our group had a poor experience with one of the staff (Mr. G. Aoi). He said his English isn't good, which is not a problem. As a visitor to Japan who speaks basic Japanese, I am used to communicating with Google translate and gestures, have never experienced a negative experience with workers. However, it simply seems this staff member wasn't trained for customer service interactions. Not just from our the way he interacted with us, but it can also be seen by the way he interacted with some other patrons and his gestures. Despite the negative interaction from Mr. Aoi, the other staff were nice and the...

So far, this was the best meal of our trip in Kyoto. Premium bento 7 course meal for a bargain deal. This meal was shared for 2 and we just added single orders like savory egg custard, tempura and sashimi to top up the meal. There was quite a line but took only 20 mins wait on a busy Sunday evening to grab a table. Loved their Chawan mushi (savory egg custard), mixed sashimi, their take on tempura with flavored salt (Kyoto style), and all the alcohol (draft beer, different sake and high ball whiskey). Will definitely recommend this place if you want to give yourself a kaiseki traditional Kyoto experience that will be embedded in your core memories...