赤とんぼ — Restaurant in Matsumoto

From the first night, we were served delicious, hot food and very interesting, yummy drinks, the best we've had on our 7 day trip so far spanning Tokyo and Matsumoto. The owner / chef / waitress is a gem. I can wholeheartedly say that okaasan is the most warm, kind, hardworking and attentive person we've met in Japan so far. Even though she had quite a few tables she was taking care of, while cooking quite complex recipes (at least for me, it was probably second nature to her, as was masterfully displayed), she always came by to see if we wanted anything. Moreover, she was very encouraging and wholeheartedly appreciated whenever we spoke using a (limited) vocabulary of Japanese, and we also communicated through Google Translate, in order to convey more complex phrases. On the second night, she asked us to write a small story on a plaque. As we signed and handed the plaque over, she asked to also take a shashin of us. We were very happy, and after that, we decided to ask her to join us, to have a lovely memory together (isshoni!). Domo arigato gozaimashita, okaasan! We will definitely visit again when we get to Matsumoto again / when we're in Japan,...

I don’t normally leave reviews and I do normally take photos of my food, but in this case it looked so good that I forgot to take photos straight away and only remembered half way through.. and I’m leaving a review because people need to know how nice it is! We had gyoza, fried chicken and two meat bibimbaps - all so delicious. Also the lady was so nice, even though we don’t speak the same language..! Really tasty food, would thoroughly recommend! (And something a bit different to the usual...

My husband and I stopped here for dinner and the owner was so kind and sweet. She waited on us and cooked our food. We were amazed that she was doing it all. The food was delicious and so were the drinks. We got the spicy ramen, the bulgogi bibimbap bowl ( it comes in a sizzling pot), gyoza( flavors when you bite into it were so fresh), and we also got the fried chicken. Everything was so good and flavorful!...