Gonpachi Nishi-Azabu — Restaurant in Tokyo

Look out! Dangerous tourist trap!!

Unfortunately, this place is a very dangerous tourist trap and I really want to warn everyone before going there. We were there as a group of 6 and ordered lots of food. One of us then told the waiter that it was her first night in Tokyo and that she would love to try some Sake, as she has never tried it before. He recommended one Sake, which we ordered. Later, we ordered even more food and the another bottle of the same Sake. Finally, when the bill arrived and we wanted to pay, we realised that several of our credit cards didn’t work. Only after a while we realised, that this was because the bill was unbelievably high - one Sake was 700 Euro, so the bill was more than 1700 Euro. Of course, we were all in enormous shock, as something like this never before happened to any of us. Even at a very good restaurant in Europe, when you order a good bottle of wine, this would rarely be over 100 Euro. And of course you would expect the waiter to point out that the drink he recommended to you would be at a decent price, especially as they have many normal priced drinks and food on the menu, so you wouldn’t expect something to have such an absurd price. After discussing with the waiter and the manager for some time, we paid the bill and left in shock. They both told us that it was not their fault at all and that we ordered the Sake ourselves. Of course, we did indeed order it. But there were several normal priced Sakes on the menu and he deliberately recommended the one for 700 Euro, a sum that is absolutely not normal and that no one would ever expect, without so much as hinting at the fact that this drink is more than some people’s rent. Also we explicitly pointed out that we were tourists and it was her first night in Tokyo, so of course she wouldn’t be accustomed to the Yen yet. When we told the manager this, he only answered that it would have been rude to hint that the Sake was expensive. This I very strongly disagree with. When you recommend - especially at an establishment that is not exactly fine dining and that is popular among students and tourists - a drink that has such an absurd price, you have to say that it is on the more expensive site. This really is unbelievably rude and after doing some research on the topic and also talking to Japanese people and people living in Tokyo for some time I am convinced that they did this completely on purpose to trap us into buying this incredibly expensive Sake. Apparently, „tricks“ like this are becoming more frequent now, so I really advise you to be careful and avoid this place!! Apart from this horrible experience, the place is also incredibly touristy and there are much nicer Izakayas in Tokyo with a better atmosphere, better food and...

LARGE GROUPS AVOID

This place was just the worst. We had a large group of 17 and the expierence has been bad from the beginning.

First of all when they brought us in they had not even cleaned the table yet. Once we got brought to our table we were left for almost 15 mins with no waiter no drinks etc. Our room was also freezing. The waiter comes back finally taking our drink orders from the first table only to get to the 2nd table and we find out if anyone wanted to do the free flow drinks then everyone had to. They then wanted to charge us for the other drinks we already ordered but not even recieved, the waiter had not even left the room yet, before they told us that rule that everyone had to order "free flow". They ended up not charging us but were not very willing to. Then it took another 10 mins for them to get our new drink order and bring them back. We only got 1 drink refill almost 30 mins after our first and for "free flow" drinks that's kinda ridiculous. Mind you they give you they give you a 2.5 hour time limit for the drinks. Also the drinks had almost no alcohol.

The servers were constantly confused and had no idea what was going on. Food was mediocre at best. Food wise 2 drinks-2/10 Bitter and watered down 3 bite size appetizer-5/10 Small and mediocre. 3 quarter size pieces of sashimi-6/10 Lean and texture wasn't the best. 1 shrimp dumpling-4/10 Actual dumpling was ok but surrounded by birds nest of over fried twigs. 2 pieces of tempura-7/10 Pretty good 1 playing card size piece of fish- 2/10 Fishy in a bad way, tasted like it was not fresh. 3 cherry tomatoes on a stick- 1/10 Seriously just some tomatoes on a stick... 1 chicken thigh skewer- 6/10 Eh, mediocre but juicy. 1 beef skewer- 8/10 Best thing of the night Small bowl of soba- 5/10 Eh, similar to the one I had on the plane ride over here. Mochi Icecream- 7/10 Smaller than a ping pong ball but good. For portions, we probably got a whole handful of food total over the whole "course meal".

On top of all of that a member of our party got a huge splinter in the bottom of their foot from the rough wood surface on the seats. This had been one of the most frustrating dining expierences of my whole life. The only positive is a member of our party has a shellfish allergy and they were able to accommodate him. The price ended up being 10,450 Yen per person. In USD that's about $71.00. Also the bathrooms were not clean.

The whole expierence was massively overpriced and disappointing. I recomend avoiding this place at all cost. Go some where else, anywhere else, 7-11 or Family Mart will give you a better...

Despite reading reviews that this restaurant was a tourist trap, as Tarantino fans we were still interested in seeing the restaurant that inspired the legendary Crazy 88 fight scene in Kill Bill vol. 1.

The service at the restaurant was very efficient and friendly. It was clear that they were used to receiving big crowds of people and that they had found a way to deal with this demand in the most efficient and organized way. We arrived at the restaurant at 7PM on a Friday evening with no reservation, and thankfully only had to wait about 5 minutes before being seated. After 7PM, the lineup of people to get in seemed to be getting longer, so I'd recommend making a reservation if you plan on dining later on in the evening. While we waited, the hostess gave us a refreshing cocktail shot (non-alcoholic). We were then taken to our seat, at the bar facing the open-concept kitchen.

The food that we ordered was pretty decent. We both got the set dinner menu at 4500 yen, which included 10 courses. The appetizer (a beef dish of some sort), salmon carpaccio, and fried shrimp dumpling (first 3 courses) were exceptional, as was the dessert. The rest were good (no complaints, however we have eaten better skewers in Tokyo). Overall, we found that the price was worth the food that we received. Of the cocktails that we tried, the yuzu honey sour was the best- I would highly recommend this one if you enjoy yuzu (citrus fruit).

What was most enjoyable about the restaurant was the building interior itself (beautiful wooden detail and old school beauty that was definitely reminiscent of the Kill Bill scene) and the lively atmosphere in the restaurant. The guests were mostly foreigners and a smaller proportion of local business men. The restaurant has adapted well to its clientele, with all of its staff speaking very fluently in English (in fact we noticed that quite a few of the staff seemed to be not native Japanese). The restaurant was playing awesome music (mostly classic rock) and the wait staff and kitchen staff all seemed to be having a great time interacting with one another and with the guests. Overall, it was a very fun place to hang out, the food was pretty good, and this is definitely a tourist trap that you don't mind...