Tomoshibi — Restaurant in Kyoto

I came here for curry udon as per their menu. They don’t have curry udon. QR Code menu says curry udon, but the picture is like a light chicken broth ramen, which is exactly what you get. It’s not bad but, it’s not what I was expecting.

They allow smoking inside so beware of that.

Also noticed that I, the only gaijin, wasn’t given a hand towel. Not sure if it’s just an oversight or a weird discrimination-lite-power-trip type stuff.

Contrasting other reviewers, the staff actually spoke no English and we communicated with through Google Translate, which is fine (we are in Japan, aren’t we?)

Not going to lie, the entire experience was really off putting. It really left a bad taste in my mouth. I’m actually wondering if I walked into the wrong restaurant, since other reviewers...

We went without a reservation at 5:30pm and the staff squeezed us in at a table for an hour. It was easy to order via the QR system, which was mostly available in English with photos. The staff made a truly outstanding effort to communicate with us despite our complete lack of Japanese.

What made this experience really fun was that this place is clearly for salarymen to celebrate after work giving it a lively atmosphere without theatrics for tourists. Smoking is permitted but it's not overpowering because the venue is well ventilated.

The food was exceptional and very reasonably priced. In particular, the grilled squid was delicious and we'll be ordering it again the next...

Loved this place. Was very lively and fun place to have dinner, was surrounded by mostly locals having fun with work colleagues (lot of salary men after work!) Menu is done with QR code and they bring your food and drinks to your table once it's ready, but the staff speak good English so we had no issues. The QR menu was mostly in English but we picked some really great dishes and some really affordable plates too as well as higher priced ones. Is a smoking venue though which is weird if you aren't used to it, but was a lovely place to hang out, eat and drink for a few hours. It had a great mix of age customers from very young to retirement age so felt very...