Seafood BBQ "Mekiki-no-Ginji" Tsutenkaku Hondori Shopping Street — Restaurant in Osaka

In short: Very bad experience. The worse we had during our 2-week trip to Japan. The staff that served us has very poor communication skills and manner. Our order was taken wrong, the invoice/ receipt was not presented for us to check and I'm almost certain we were deliberately charged a higher fee.

So the 2 of us went in for dinner and were charged a table fee. It was not noted outside the restaurant, and no other restaurant ever does that here, however touristy and busy they are. But the staff informed me (very poorly) so we agreed. Then he took the order wrong. We waited for 20 mins and decided we don't want that dish. When we went to the front to pay, we were not given a receipt and were simply asked for a price. I had to asked to see the receipt for it to be printed for us: it was not even out table's order. The amount of dishes and the amount charged is drastically different, and the staff had to check for 4 to 5 mins before printing out the correct bill. If I didn't check I would have paid 1400 yen more. Annnnd of course he didn't know how to charge a foreign card.

Smoking is also allowed here.

Do...

I believe the problem lies with the ingredients. It’s hard to imagine a Japanese chain izakaya having issues with ingredient quality.

I ordered a sashimi rice bowl, and the sashimi lacked moisture—it was like the kind of fish used in cheap nigiri sushi that's been left out in the open. It had no sense of freshness at all.

I also ordered grilled shellfish and sea snails, but they didn’t feel fresh either. The seafood had a slightly bitter and fishy taste, and I ended up spitting out many of the off-tasting parts.

Perhaps I’ve had too much fresh seafood from Hokkaido, or maybe I expected the standards of a typical Isomaru Suisan izakaya. Still, I didn’t pay any less at this place, so I hope the restaurant can improve the quality of its ingredients. Please don’t use stale or unsold seafood that’s been frozen too long.

The only reason this review gets two stars is because of the friendly waitress and the self-ordering system. But in the end, the most important thing in running a restaurant is making delicious food—the fundamentals need to...

The first is the terrible taste, the sea urchin is bitter, in this season should not have such bitter sea urchin, poor quality. The other dishes aren't as scary as sea urchins, but they're not as good, either. The staff at all the stores I went to in Japan were very welcoming, except this one. They don't talk to us, they don't even water. I thought this was normal, but then two Japanese diners came, and the waiter took the initiative to give them water. It tasted terrible and was discriminated against and treated differently because of my status as a foreign traveler. It was the worst meal I ever...