Yakitori Tsujiya — Restaurant in Kyoto

Great place if you're japanese, not as great if you're a tourist/foreigner. My fiance and I joined the wait-list on Oct. 25th at 7:10 pm. The host told us it would be an hour and we were both fine with that since the reviews and food pics looked great. As we waited, after about 20 minutes another Japanese couple lines up and asked us if we were waiting in line and we answered them yes. The couple then went to the hostess to add their name to the wait-list. After another 30 minutes the hostess comes out and looks at my fiance and I, then at the couple next to us who joined the wait-list after and spoke to them in Japanese and invited them in. I ran up to the hostess with my fiance to let her know she must have made a mistake, but she stopped us and said "yes I know, you're __" as she said my fiance's name on the wait-list. I tried to give the benefit of the doubt that perhaps she invited that other couple in before us because they were going to sit at the bar area as I have heard the chefs enjoy speaking to locals as they cook. However when we were taken to our seats upstairs at the table area after waiting another 30 minutes, we saw the other Japanese couple sitting at the table next to us enjoying their meal... Needless to say this left an extremely bad taste in our mouths as we had read about xenophobia and discrimination against foreigners in Japan, but this was our first time experiencing it. I don't usually write reviews unless there is an exceptional reason, but with this restaurant having great reviews and seems to cater to foreigners/tourists (they have English set menus) I would strongly encourage people to be cautious when visiting this restaurant. Their food was good, we won't deny that, but the experience was truly heart breaking. All other restaurants and places we have been to in Osaka and Kyoto have been accommodating and extremely friendly. This was not that experience. To those who plan to travel to the Kyoto area, reconsider visiting this restaurant. Thanks...

I recommend you to skip this restaurant.

Stumbled upon this restaurant for an early dinner. Was excited by the atmosphere and great reviews.

After ordering one round of skewers and oden, the food arrived quickly. The skewers were very average and a little under-seasoned. Oden was forgettable. We ordered a second round and the skewers took 20 minutes to arrive. There were still 3 items missing so we waited. After another 25 minutes of waiting, the remaining orders still did not come. After we followed up with them, it turns out the order was missed even though they use a QR code ordering system. 2 of the missing items arrived but we soon realized the last remaining order wasn’t going to show up. We asked them to cancel as we had already waited 45+ minutes for the missing food and were no longer in a mood to eat the average food. We asked the server to cancel and they confirmed it was cancelled. When we saw the bill, the cancelled orders were still charged and we had to ask them again to remove that before they fixed it.

Incredibly poor service and experience from what I have come to expect in Kyoto.

Not sure how this restaurant gets such high reviews when better food, atmosphere, and service can be had in many...

Another little gem I found that’s mostly local and yet so accommodating to foreigners. They use the English they know to communicate and they provide an English menu! We were looking for a yakitori spot. Although this one offers mostly just chicken, it still hits the spot. Cooked perfectly with different options of parts, we ordered about 10 skewers, 1 grilled chicken Don rice bowl, and a traditional veggie soup dish card Oden. It’s a small portion kind of like tapas style but each dish were incredibly flavorful. They also gave a dish at the beginning called otohshi which seemed to consist of grated daikon and miniature fish (sardines??) soaked in ponzu sauce. It was so light and refreshing with a slight spicy kick! I wish I was able to fully communicate and ask what was in it but that question got lost in translation a bit.

I recommend this spot if you are a small party of 1 or 2. Friendly staff and comfortable seating with delicious food. They have tons of drinks too but we did not feel like drinking at the moment!

I took 1 star off because they told us to write a review and they would take off the table charge (that we didn’t know about) but they didn’t so we were...