Asaya Resthouse — Restaurant in Nikko

The food is actually very tasty and natural. I tried several restaurants around stations. It was nothing special. However, Asaya's soba was quite amazing. It's located near Shinkyo bridge. It's easy to try it.

BTW, I ordered a staff non-pork noodle. However, he came to serve it with pork meat.

I'm a Japanese citizen with European descendant who had raised abroad 15 years mainly in Europe. In Nikko, I several times received sort of harassment in restaurants and cafeterias even though I did nothing to them.

I've heard from other Western tourists that Japanese used to commit such an ijime style crafty harassment to Japanese expats from abroad.

I spent 6 days in Nikko and started to doubt they're commiting such ridiculous discriminations on purpose.

Unlike Westerners, Japanese staffs basically don't have good smile nor can speak English well. Personally, I'm not a big fun of talking to Japanese in tourism areas. So the Best bet is to observe how staffs there behave and select a shop.

If you're Jewish or a Muslim or Hinduist, you should ask staffs to make sure which food contains pork or not. If not sure, you may try Sansai Soba (tradition Japanese noodle with Japanese mountain vegetables). The soup is made by Japanese fish. So no worry...

Had the misfortune to choose this place for my lunch before visiting the shrine, in short, an expensive tourist trap with little effort from the cook.

And although the staff is friendly and will welcome you nicely, the food is enough to make you turn tail!

Not only the portions are below average in size for the overcharge they have, but also the taste is so so pathetic compared to ANY restaurant you would find elsewhere.

I took a pork cutlet over rice with egg and miso soup.

The miso was alright, hard to get wrong a fish broth.

But the pork was too oily and humid, meaning it lost all it's crunchiness and tasted just heavy and unpleasant in the mouth, with just the plain rice to save you from morsel to morsel.

A pain to pay those 1300 yen, where for less you get the same dish 10 times better.

Absolutely DO NOT recommend this place if you have...

This is literally what we'd call a "greasy spoon." It looks and feels old, worn out and unkempt. It's on top of a treat and souvenir shop of sorts. The food was just "okay!" If you've eaten your way around Japan, you'll know exactly what I mean. It's almost impossible to have a bad meal in this country. You can have an "okay" or even "mediocre" meal, but not a bad one. This one was okay, with some items bordering mediocre. The udon weren't half bad, but the soba dipping noodles were just meh. This isn't a meal that'll make you want to call home about. But in a pinch, especially when the weather is cold, it's as good as you'll get it around the area. Perhaps consider looking closer to the...