Bubby’s Kichijoji — Restaurant in Tokyo

New York eatery failed to please in Kichijoji. In New York Bubby’s is highly popular. I have seen the lines at Hudson’s street but I’ve never been there to eat. I’m sure they provide prestige service. My experience at this store in Kichijoji was a huge disappointment. It was my first time to eat in store since I always just order pie to go. Since we waited in line for 15 min I wanted service to be reasonable but unfortunately the staff weren’t trained enough that they weren’t familiar with the menu. After telling the waitress our orders I asked her to repeat the order since I didn’t want to have to wait longer than needed. With confirmation that she understands the order she advised us that the burger will take 20min to prepare. We ordered the avocado cheese burger w/ fries, pulled pork sandwich w/ fries with a side of blue cheese dressing. Even tho I asked the waitress to reconfirm the order there was a miscommunication between her and the kitchen staff. The pulled pork came with blue cheese dressing on the sandwich so we had to wait an extra ten minutes for them to correct the order. I wanted to dip my fries in the blue cheese dressing. Which is why I asked the waitress to repeat my order… :( The avocado cheese burger was nothing special and the fries were a huge disappointment. I could tell they prepare fries in house since the potatoes used were Japanese potatoes but as you can see the oil they use for frying was very dirty which makes the fries look dirty. Also when you overuse frying oil it looses it’s ability to make things crispy. Therefore we had soggy fries. Basically fries heated and soaked in oil. How can you get that wrong on a Sunday when you know it will be busy. All you need to do is change the oil for a busy Sunday. I enjoyed the pulled pork sandwich since there aren’t many options when it comes to pulled pork in Tokyo. BBQ sauce nice, mustard spice sauce also tasty. The Cole slaw was nice too. We also ordered a slice of sour cherry pie to go. It surprises me that these big companies have so many flaws in their stores. They are tarnishing the heart and soul of the brand. If they spent more time training their staff this review could’ve been positive. The recipes of the food were authentic. It’s the effort and consistency to deliver the product...

It's okay, but not great. Both dishes we ordered were a bit of a disappointment but edible. For a place that boasts to have the best American diner experience & "grandmother's recipes", we expected better food.

Service was slow and unattentive: we didn't get a single water refill and had to wait for them to clear multiple tables, even though only 1 couple came out during the time we considered to go in and had to wait.

Details about the food:

First dish: pulled pork burger sandwich Painfully dry despite that I added avocado on top. The pulled pork probably sat since hours uncovered, so it got hard and bone dry with very little seasoning overall. I ended up pouring the tiny cold slaw side on the burger to soften up the meat. It also came without any sauce on it, and the two side sauces were not good: one tasted like ketchup with added vinegar, the other was an incredibly strong vinegar with loads of mustard and chili mix. Really wondered why there wasn't a single barbecue sauce. Other places like Smokehouse in Harajuku have much better pulled pork to begin with and great sauces. The fries were a bit soggy and soaked in oil; I assume the oil wasn't hot enough when they went into the deep fryer.

Second dish: roast chicken with mash & sautéed vegetables, which turned out to be just mushy plain spinach. The roasted chicken had a soggy skin without any crisp, but was juicy overall and a decent size. Unfortunately the mash had lumps and was not seasoned at all. Which made it even worse that the dish came without any real gravy. It only had about 1 spoon full of watery sauce.

Also note that the ginger ale is not a home made one, it's just the sweet version of the bottled Canada dry brand you get in every Japanese supermarket. The pink lemonade was better and had big pieces of grapefruit in it.

I don't think we'll come back for the food. For my taste, even the pies had far too much sugar on top and the granny Smith apple pie shop has better options with more...

I ordered the salmon Macaroni Cheese lunch set. It was acceptable, but not as creamy or cheesy as you would expect from an actual American diner. Also, the type of pasta used wasn’t real macaroni, but small shells instead, which I found funny and inauthentic. A small detail, but just felt weird.

Only one drink in the lunch set has free refills (standard hot coffee). Anything slightly different (even ice coffee) means you can’t get a free refill. This was not written clearly enough on the menu. I would have ordered something else on the regular menu, if I had known this.

In addition, the service wasn’t amazing. Two of the main servers were often chatting together happily and it took me a while to get their attention! My water never got refilled either.

Again, these are small things but when the food is overpriced like this, I expect more! I have been to other Bubby’s branches before and the food options/service all seemed a lot better.

I heard some Japanese customers next to me saying how delicious it was, so maybe some menu items are better than others! Overall there are better value places in Kichijoji- I wouldn’t recommend unless you NEED some “okay”...