Pokémon Cafe Osaka Shinsaibashi — Restaurant in Osaka

Unfortunately, had more negatives than positives coming here to say the least. Pokemon fans, take your time to read these reviews before fighting to try andd get a booking! -Firstly, the booking system: it's notoriously difficult to get a booking, but I suspect the difficultly is fabricated to incite scarcity and exclusivity. Booking in advance was impossible, but checking the page the night before showed a few tables available and while there, there were quite a few empty tables. Don't fret if you miss booking out before your trip, you might end up finding one while you're there. -Second, the atmosphere & service: it was decently cute and we'll themed, especially loved the photo opportunity table with the Pokemon. However that is the only positive in this review. Orders had to be placed by an iPad, which has it's pros and cons, but it takes away from good service given how much you're actually paying for your food. As for service, it's was cold and felt rushed. Given how many are working there, it was difficult to get their attention if you needed something like water. Food and drinks took quite a while to come out, which is surprising given there's only three options for meals. Food also came out barely warm, and it was cold by the time my partner's food had arrived in order for us to eat together. Our drinks came out after both meals were half eaten already, also not hot, which is disappointing for coffee. Finally, they are completely inflexible when it comes to asking for anything related to food. I asked for some extra sauce with my chicken meal, as the amount within the little container didn't even reach halfway, however was told coldly I couldn't buy more. The performance was fine, could see the kids enjoying it which was nice. -Food: The meals here left much to be desired. The portions are tiny given how much you're paying per meal. Wouldn't even fill up a teenager even if they ordered one of the adult options. As mentioned before, everything was just warm. I enjoyed the salads, but the rest was disappointing. Coffees would have been enjoyable if it had been hot. Finishing up, I'd say give it a skip. The food was very cute, but nothing else. You can get very cute merch, but you're better off just coming to the store and purchasing it rather than dining there. Save...

The food and drink experience here is unfortunately forgettable but Pokemon Cafe makes up for that with the fun atmosphere, quick and friendly service, and exclusive merchandise that you can only get when you make a reservation. (You are also time limited here, can't stay forever)

Do not come here for the food! There are so many other places to go that has much better quality and taste. You are only coming here for the experience, and the opportunity to buy exclusive merchandise that is only available to people that make reservations. This is one of the hardest places to get a reservation because people constantly just sweep them up as soon as it becomes available. If you are not a fan of Pokemon or don't intend to purchase any of the exclusive merchandise, you can easily skip this cafe. You can always queue without a reservation but honestly, it isn't worth the wait.

So how is the food? Well, I've heard it described before as "airplane food" but I think that's a disservice to airline catering as I've definitely had some better food while flying. The Snorlax Lunch Plate while not bland, it wasn't exactly tasty either. Just run of the mill fried rice, grilled chicken and salad. The Eevee Royal Milk Tea wasn't sweetened but the tea flavor is buried and lost in the milk and whipped cream. The "choose your own pokemon" latte was standard issue. But it is nice that you get to choose from a large amount of Pokemon. The desserts....oh boy, those were moving into mediocre territory. One of the few times in Japan that the food looks better than it tastes. You can tell these were pre-made. While that is understandable for time and prep sake, the cakes tasted days old. Both the Pikachu Souffle and Monster Ball cakes were dry. No amount of syrup or whipped cream was going to save this. And the desserts were typical "not too sweet" Japanese fashion. Ultimately, yes, the food is quite disappointing.

Overall, while I did enjoy my visit, I can only recommend Pokemon Cafe if you are true fan and aren't coming for the food. There is short interactive Pokemon show and you get to take nice pictures of a bunch of Pokemon themed things. But the aggravating reservation experience and average at best food should steer you towards...

We would normally avoid even trying to go to this cafe due to how notoriously bad the system to get in is, but we were visiting Osaka during our first travel to Japan and happened to be close to this cafe, so might as well check if we could get in.

We were in 4 adults and my daughter who had just become 2yo, our preference was for her to sit in one of the parent's lap so we could help her with the food as she is still learning, so when asked in the waiting line how many, we answered 4 adults.

We eventually managed to get in, but then when everyone was trying to sit (me with my daughter on my lap and the other 3 adults on each seat), attendants started rushing mad at us, angrily saying we were in 5, not 4 and that someone would have to leave. We were very confused, my wife tried to sit down to try and calm down to understand what was happening and the waitress actually held her to prevent her from sitting until someone left, we felt treated as criminals.

This made ABSOLUTELY no sense, I told them we wanted the child to sit in our lap, which would make one seat in our table available to my friend, but they were having none of it, so my friend left.

Food is average, presentation is nice for pokemon fans, but the service is utterly unprepared to deal with anything outside the perfect scenario in their rulebook, instead of spending 2 minutes to calmly discuss with us a way for us not to get in the way of their service while still being able to have our magical pokemon moment, they basically threw their rulebook to our faces.

After this kind of experience, the average food tasted like trash, and I was giving zero f. To Pikachu's dance, I would absolutely avoid coming back here. Guests be aware that you are not a welcome entity in this business, you are meat going through the machine, any exception, no matter how small, will be met with...