Tiger Gyoza Kaikan Shijo Karasuma — Restaurant in Kyoto

Mixed feelings about his restaurant.

We went pretty late one night as they were within walking distance from our accommodation, still open and had fairly good reviews.

The cooks certainly know their craft and create some really tasty meals and great flavours. My daughters both had a large serves kf standard but delicious Ramen and finished it all. The gyozas were great.

I had Dan Dan Ramen which was new to me but really great.

I would give 4 stars for the food.

The downside however was the customer service and hygiene of the kitchen.

The ladies that meet, greet and serve really didn't seem to like people very much at all. Maybe it was because we had gotten used to the incredibly high service levels and genuine friendliness that Japan is deservedly famous for, but this was nothing like that at all.

We sat at the bar facing the open kitchen which was exciting as the speed and energy of the cooks was frenetic and entertaining. The cooks were flat out. However........we were also sitting down the end where the washing and garbage disposal station was located quite close to our right. The two ladies washing the dishes and pans glumly scowled at us the whole time. They would wash one plate or pan and then both would just stand there doing nothing except looking angry waiting for another plate to arrive. There was quite a revolting stench that occasionally wafted over from the cleaning/rubbish station to where we were eating. It was completely disgusting and like it hadn't been scrubbed down for months.

If the staff and cleanliness were up to scratch it would probably be four stars, but hey, this is Kyoto where excellent is the norm and usually...

Absolutely delightful dinner! And the staff was so welcoming and helpful. Service was fast and great (English menus provided online by QR scan and follow through English translation was plenty enough for everyone to get through what was needed !) and they allowed our 10 month old baby for the reservation. We actually found this place on a blog that mentioned restaurants in Tokyo that would accept small children and we made a reservation at this location as it had the best reviews (there are 2 locations). I’m glad we did. It was fully booked otherwise. We found even with so many restaurants in Tokyo, reservations are essential if you have limitations ( like kids or canes, etc). The food was all spectacularly delicious and tasty! Some was definitely spicy as mentioned in other reviews, but some was not and you could add spice if you wanted. Nothing was inedible because of spice , although the Hot dan-dan noodles did end up being too spicy for us to finish, but everything else was completely enjoyable! We would certainly go back often if we actually lived closer! I truly wish we had 🥟 gyoza like this at home 🥲. We did pork, prawn, chicken and mixed plates of gyoza and about 4-5 other types of dishes to share . Plenty of food and we were all very very satisfied. The prawn dishes were the absolute best loved by all. The staff was GREAT! Only caveat*the stairs to the 2nd and 3rd floor are quite steep and there is no railing up, so just be careful if you have someone in your party that needs to avoid that..first floor is only single file kitchen seating). Would highly...

Interesting layout of the restaurant, it's very small but on three stories instead. We were shown a table on floor two and for the first time in Japan we encountered not one but to vaitors that were actually nearly rude in their appearance! We couldn't understand if we did something wrong or if they just had a bad day? The restaurant itself was very nice and the food was exelent. As the name suggest, they had a lot of different Gyoza styles and we literally tried them all. The only one you could skip was the one covered in cheese, the rest were all amazing and some of them we ordered several times. Top three were: big ones, okonomiyaki style and black ones. We also tried Avocado/Tofu sallad, pork sallad and fried rice. They accept Credit cards witch is a plus. The vaitors bye the cashier and entrance were all nice. Recommende this place and hopefully the vaitors on the second floor has better day...