Niigata Katsudon Tarekatsu — Restaurant in Kyoto

My family and I (including young child) dined here twice on our recent trip to Kyoto - once for dinner and the second time for a quick lunch in between sightseeing. The food was very good, particularly the curry sauce which was nice and sweet. The menu was varied and had a lot of different fried options (pork, pork fillet, prawns, vegetable) and a good drinks selection.

That said, I was disappointed with the service having been so impressed with other places we had visited - such is the Japanese way of hospitality.

On our second visit, the young staff member was not very flexible/accomodating and ended up encouraging us to “take out” as there was “not enough space” in the restaurant. Just as we were ordering, two tables finished their meals and left however there was no offer for us to stay and dine in (despite half the restaurant being empty at that stage). It put a bit of a dampener on the overall experience (after all, we were returning patrons - and for good reason given the quality of the food).

Families with strollers / young children - just beware of this before you visit… great food, but, given our circumstances, I think we were thrown in the “too...

Absolutely atrocious! I've never encountered such terrible service in my entire life. As a foreigner living in Japan, I had the misfortune of taking my friends to this place, expecting decent food and the usual exceptional service Japan is known for. However, the moment we stepped in, this part-time worker gave us the stink eye. He rudely asked, in Japanese, how many of us there were. I said 7, and then he brusquely demanded we split up - 4 on one table, 3 on another.

But guess what? Just as he was about to divide us, a group left, freeing up enough space for us to sit together. When I politely asked to do so, he shot me a nasty look, muttered nothing, and begrudgingly cleaned the table, motioning for us to sit.

There's so much more to share about this appalling experience, but I'll spare you the details.

They exude a blatant xenophobic attitude. Save yourself the headache and avoid this establishment if you fancy eating...

Had christmas lunch here. The pork katsu was very, i mean very delicious. Super tender and juicy, with a nice tonkatsu crumbed exterior. I wish there was more or larger size in the tonkatsu. The miso soup was delicatw and refined, withe the tofu and seaweed cut into small sizes that were pleasant to eat. The tsukemono was light and not to over powering as is often the case. The sansho was very, very good and fresh. The biggest disappointment was the quality of the rice, it tasted like cheap supermarket rice, not what you would expect from a resturant of this caliber, although at the time of year, and how busy it was, i may have gotten back up rice if they ran out. Overall a great little piece of kyoto, tucked away in a side street, with gret Tonkatsu....