Shabu-Shabu Tajimaya — Restaurant in Kyoto

We discovered this All-You-Can-Eat Shabu shabu restaurant while walking around the mall. We instantly got excited and decided to try it! Well, that excitement was short lived after they told us that they were all booked up (it was 6:30PM when we arrived 😰) for the day and was told to come back the next day but needed to book ahead of time. We did just that and I am craving for it again 😋! Service was great, Japanese are just so polite and attentive 👍🏼! The place was clean, spacious, and cozy!

You get to pick 2 kinds of broth out of the 6 available and we picked: Korean-style Spicy Soup (10/10): I actually thought the spice was just right. There was a little bit of numbness to the taste and it was really enjoyable. Chinese Baitang Stock (8/10): It was pretty good for vegetables and glass noodles because this broth felt healthy. We kind of neglected this broth because the meat tasted better on the spicy soup and meat is usually is our main focus when it comes to AYCE meals 😅!

The meat 🥩: Wagyu beef (10/10): We had probably 10 plates of meat and 6 of them were their wagyu beef slices 🐄! The meat was fresh and tasted pretty sweet and the texture was excellent 👍🏼! Premium beef (7/10): I don't know how to justify eating these over the wagyu. You could give it a try but I wouldn't recommend this if you could afford the wagyu pricing (¥2,100 more expensive than the premium beef). Pork (8/10): we had 1 plate of this and I thought it was pretty good but again, their pork can't beat the wagyu!

Vegetables (10/10) 🥬 : These can be picked up at the self-service area! They were fresh and I actually enjoyed their mushrooms🍄 too!

Dessert (10/10) 🍨 : They have many flavors of ice cream if you need something sweet! I would recommend their matcha and vanilla ice cream!

Overall, I really enjoyed eating here and would totally recommend it to anyone that loves... No, actually, no exception! Everyone should at least try Shabu-shabu Tajimaya once if you are in Kyoto!

TIPS: The AYCE menu allows you to dine in for 90 minutes (I think we were in there for longer), but depending on how crowded the place is, you might actually be able to stay longer. However, it is worth noting that the last call for more meat would be indeed at the 90th...

結論: 異物混入、サービスが遅い、対応が適当 Conclusion: worst dining experience I've had in Japan in all these years We ordered wagyu shabu course, after the first dish of meat was served it took 10 to 20 minutes for new dishes to arrive after waiters took order(most all you can eat restaurants use tablets nowadays, that's your first red flag). For the same price, you can eat at Tenndan which is considered very good in Kyoto. So we didn't get the service/food we paid for, that's not all. After finishing 2/3 of a plate of beef, a waitress came to take away our unfinished meat, saying they found pieces of plastic in other tables meat. At the time we thought it's just a precaution. The replacement came after another long wait, and we found said plastic package in our pot. To be fair it could've been there before replacement, but the dissatisfactory service and plastic package I called the waiter to address this problem. I asked a waitress to go get the manager, not wanting a refund or anything, they could at least make a proper apology. A waiter showed up apologetically, turns out the restaurant was run by part timers (plus one proper employee). Not wanting to give him a hard time personally, I let him off. This dinner was so ruined I didn't have the mood to have the ice cream provided. At the till they gave a 10% discount as apology. Leaving it behind, I saw people still queuing to get in 🤣 I have two theories: either this is the the quality of food and service they provide normally, or the plastic mixing incident caused so much chaos that the restaurant operations collapsed completely. Either way this restaurant should not be allowed to do...

Where do I start with this review ? We found it in the AEON by accident as we were looking for the Gundam satellite store (which we found and found to be a waste of time for any Gundam fan) - all you can eat beef sukiyaki for about 30 AUD. We choose the premium beef over the standard. Unfortunately we found that the clock started as soon as you sat down and ordered not when you get any food so we were already down 10mins to 15 mins before the soup and beef was delivered to our table. With 60 minutes to eat and 50 min to order only it was not ideal and I found it a little dishonest!! Anyway we made the most of it by asking for extra beef constantly to catch up. They provide a vege bar which you can obtain yourself. All in all it was worth it and we got enough value from it from our approach - felt quite...