Momoshiki — Restaurant in Nara

Staff that seated us and served us were unable to communicate in English clearly or pleasantly, lacked even basic full sentences needed for customer service. No “please, thank you, may I take your plate?”, nothing more than stock phrases and rough, broken fragments. I asked a question about the tea served in the restaurant and the staff just stared at me. She didn’t understand or didn’t know the information I was seeking, but she was unable to communicate at all. Restaurant relies on a QR code system for ordering. This may impress non-native English speaker customers or tourists only interested in drinking, but money should be spent on proper training for customer service as well as hiring staff with clear pronunciation and experience beyond part time uni jobs, (at these prices at least). Food was alright but the atmosphere and service were very poor. Seeing other people’s negative reviews confirmed my discomfort with the atmosphere and the terrible service. Note: revisiting this review 5 months later, staff or management ignore reviews and only respond to positive reviews with clearly AI generated responses. Confirms that there are no actual human English speakers capable of responding to any negative reviews. The only competent English speaker during my visit was the staff clearing tables. Perhaps put him in a position of responsibility and pay him accordingly to look after social media...

Honestly, one of the nicest places to eat I've ever experienced. I've traveled across the globe and it's rare to see such high quality items, prepared masterfully, at such a reasonable price.

I went for the most expensive lunch set item they offered, coming out to 5100 yen. The cook-yourself dashi broth broiled meat dish with 260g of Yamamoto beef, udon noodles, mushrooms, and an assortment of vegetables. Accompanied by a helping of miso soup, rice, a locally sourced raw egg and pickled radish. I have no words to truly do the flavour of the broth justice besides delicious! A deep and slightly sweet yet savoury flavour packaged as a light brown liquid nectar.

The staff present you with an instruction sheet on how to best prepare and enjoy the food, and it's written in both japanese and english so there's no confusion or accidental overcooking!

If you're planning a trip to Nara and you're a lover of beef dishes PLEASE I implore you to try this restaurant.

Also for a refreshing finisher, please try the Ichigo Kakigori, a light but devilishly sweet strawberry shaved ice dish, served with milk...

Food was good but service is non-existent, our group comprised of Japanese and English speaking, we ordered a mix of items and they lump everything together in a hot pot without explanation, as the serving were so small, it seems like it was at most for 2 pax, and luckily we did share, as it’s meant for all 6 pax.

The dashi for the meal came so late that the food was already finished, which is really meaningless, and every time they came to our table is only to clear the table, even minutes after they deliver the dashi that came really late.

The beef was also severely over cooked, they did not return at all to check the meat and we simply eat it when we noticed that they were never going to inform us.

Basically, there was zero communication about what was put on the table and leave you figuring out for yourself. And when we told the staff, he said because he was the only basic English speaking and also made up some other excuses, but when we said we’ve Japanese at the table too, he was...