Butagumi — Restaurant in Tokyo

After eating an amazing gyukatsu meal in the afternoon, I was looking forward to a great tonkatsu meal at night. And boy was I disappointed.

The best part of the meal was the amuse bouche. The tomato and the cookies topped with smoked butter (?) tastes really good.

The fried ground pork appetizer was decent. Then i had the Iberico and himuro pork. The himuro was 80% fat, not exaggerating here. With that much fat, of course it is tender! But isn't that also cheating?!! And I assure you that you won't have a great meal when you see your wife stacking blocks of fats costing about 2000 YEN away, would you? And of course, with that much fat, naturally, there's not much flavor. And it is not the kind that is marbled in the meat, it is the blocks of fat kind that you can easily cut off without touching the meat. Problem is, if you cut off all of the fat, the remaining 20% of meat bears all the cost of 4000 YEN! That's one expensive piece of meat!!! My heart skipped a beat everytime I see my wife cut off a block of fat off the tonkatsu. In the end she filled an entire small bowl with the fats. That has to cost 2000 YEN by weight! She did eat some of the fat reluctantly though because she knows how expensive those fats are. Nevertheless, one bowl of fat is alot!

The iberico is better, it only has 30% fat, the rest is meat, perhaps marbled with fats. Which is acceptable. But honestly I don't feel much fat in the meat. It is not as tender as an awesome kakuni I ate sometime ago at a ramen shop. But it is much more expensive! The meat is more flavorful than the himuro but it tastes nothing special. Nevertheless, it is the better choice due to much higher edible meat ratio.

The grilled cheese appetizer recommended by the waiter is really mediocre and smothered with oil. Not good at all. The croquette is mediocre too.

The worst part of the night is the boy waiter. He pulls a long face throughout the night with his eyebrows constantly frowning. When I wanted to order more food, I took the menu off a shelf myself. He looked at me angrily saying, "ASK!" (Perhaps trying to say that if I wanted to see the menu, I should ask his permission for it, instead of helping myself). Then my wife was really bothered by the fact that he snatches empty plates almost as soon as the last piece of food was lifted off the plate by our chopsticks. As though, he wants to get rid of us as soon as possible. I wasn't too bothered by that personally. When I asked for the bill, a female waiter brought it to us (she was nice), after I put my money in the bill folder, I tried to give it to the boy waiter because the female waitress was nowhere to be found. He said, "you bring it downstairs!", with his everlasting frown on his face. I thought, "ok, weird restaurant, maybe that's the policy, they don't like to bring payments to the cashier for the customers". But a minute later, the nice female waitress came with a smile and said, "I'll take it down for you" (so it is not a restaurant policy but a lazy, rude waiter not wanting to go through the trouble of taking care of bills). The female waitress helps the restaurant get an extra star from me. Unfortunately, everything else, especially the bad service of the boy waiter and the super fatty pork pulls down much of the stars to 1.

Definitely the worst meal I had in my current Japan...

This is a long review from a non-Japanese speaking experience: (TLDR- RESERVE THEN ENJOY THE SUPERB SERVICE AND FOOD.) (This was my 2nd visit to this shop, 4 years apart (before and after covid) and I'm still touched by the food and service.)

The shop opens at 6pm for dinner, and My party of 2 is the head of queue at 5.30pm. At 5.45pm, the waiter came out and sticked a "full house, you might wait for an hour" sign on the door. Because apparently you can call/reserve a seat prior. (see shop description and google translate it for the latest info.) hence all 6pm slot was booked before that. Because we are a party of 2 and head of the queue, we entered in 6.03 tho.

First, warm towels were served to welcome us, and an semi-English speaking waitress brought us an English menu. Point to order and say "this, one" and thats it.

The appetiser were served, which are pulled pork on cracker, smoked sous vide pork liver marinated in miso, and a smoked/partially cooked tomato. All of which are awesome, especially the pulled pork, which are the best pulled pork i've ever ate albite its only one bite. And the pork liver is cooked to the right doneness, and have a heavy chared fragrant to it along with the saltiness from the miso. I rate this appetizer 9.8/10.

The mains, pork katsu were the best pork katsu I've eaten because of the quality of the pork and the doneness of it. It is not over cooked and juice will squirt out of the pork the first few bite when it was at the right temperature when served (so it feels like they leave it there for a little while to serve at the right temperature to ensure the customer dont burn their tongue, and also for the pork juice to resettle into the meat, I think)

The rice, cabbage, and the miso soup were free flow, and the most amazing part of it is the waiter will consistently check quietly to see how much you've eaten, for example when your rice is almost empty, the waitress will ask if you want refill even without you getting the attention of the waitress.

At the end of the meal, they will ask if you will need more refills, if not they will serve warm tea for you wash down the not too oily meal.

The overall experience were perfect, quality of food were exceptional, it was cooked amazingly well, service was superb and price were reasonable, ranges from. 2000yen to 6500 yen depending to the type of the pork you...

I made a reservation for our pending trip to Japan from USA per their website instructions - we called and they didn’t speak and English, so I emailed, to which the person responding was very timely and seemingly respectful. We got a confirmation of our appointment and 2 requests regarding arriving on time and no strong scents or perfumed.

The day came, and no issues with arriving on time - we commuted over and were early to our reservation. We walked past two nicely dressed locals and were hit with a wave of florals.

However, we checked in and were guided to our table but once we sat at our table the trouble began. We got one message typed/translated from an older woman, saying “no perfumes” and that “other guests have refused.” We replied that we were not wearing any. (Looking back my guess is the locals we passed are the ones who refused, and the scent was lingering but there was no way that the floral scent was coming off us. We even offered for them to smell us.) There was an obvious language barrier but that was the last time we were able to exchange any words. We had spent the day at the amusement park so at the very least, none of us were smelling clean. After that single message, we were simply ignored.

My biggest frustration, after having traveled not only a different country, but actually also arriving at the restaurant, no one had the respect to discuss with us concerns before ignoring our table. While I understand their requirements, the least that could have happened would have been a discussion about their concerns. It seems like a miscommunication and confusion, but their treatment of their customers is actually quite terrible. We had found them through a foodie YouTuber that travels, so I can also only guess his treatment was superior, to try to gather more customer. Disappointing that they aren’t interested in retaining said customers.

Other reviews share similar rude encounters, I can’t say whether it is due to being tourists or another reason but I cannot recommend them. I even tried to email after the whole situation and no response has been offered. I don’t expect one. Based on the other reviews, it sounds like the food may be hit or miss so take that as you may. I wouldn’t even try to come back if I were local, based on our...