Pepper Parlor — Restaurant in Tokyo

My friends and I arrived here around 9:15pm on a Monday night. We saw this place earlier in the day while just browsing the plaza and said we were going to come back for dinner.

The vibe had changed significantly from earlier. There was dim lighting and “live” music from the robots. It was so cool! After we checked in at reception, a robot guided us to our seats.

Once at the table, there was a we must order online. I placed my order at 9:29pm. There were many items that were sold out. I only got the appetizers: fried chicken, rice, and gyoza. I got 2 chili sauces on the side for the chicken and gyoza.

My fried chicken came at 9:34pm via robot. It was HOT! I ordered one a side of chili sauce but I should’ve added with my chicken vs separately as a side item lol.

At 9:35pm, I ordered 2 lemon sours (one for me and one for my friend) via the website. A waiter brought it over a few minutes later. Unfortunately, they were not good at all.

The rest of my food (rice and gyoza) came at 9:45pm. My friends’ appetizers (fried chicken and fries) came at 9:46pm. At 9:47pm, a waiter came and said it was last order (I assume they were closing early as it wasn’t busy.)

At 9:54pm, my friend’s ramen arrived. My friend didn’t like the Ramen. He said “it was fake ramen; I can tell it not authentic ramen”. Same friend also felt his fried chicken was too salty whereas mine was cooked perfectly and seasoned just right.

You’re able to change language of the robot at your table. You can chat with it or have it dance. At times, all the robots were in sync with the robots on the “stage” that were dancing and singing. Entertainment wise and convince wise, the robots are pretty cool.

A waiter brought over our bill. Each time you add something, they brought out an updated bill. When we paid, there was a 10% service fee added to the bill when we went to pay; unsure what it covers.

Overall, it was a decent experience. The robots were the highlight and main reason why we stopped. The menu was limited and the alcoholic drinks were terrible. The wait times seemed a little long for it not to be busy. At times, the robot didn’t seem to work right. It would ask a question in the chat feature. When I answered, it showed up on the screen but then the robot would say “Sorry…” and asked us to repeat. To be honest, it was more of a one and done type...

We heard about this restaurant, and thought it looked like a cute little idea for entertainment while eating.

We made a reservation (through a 3rd party - AutoReserve - as Pepper Parlor did not have any option to do this online that I could find) for 8pm on a Sunday.

We arrived excited by having a robot companion for our dinner. Ordering food was easy (scan a qr code), ordering drinks was easy (order at the bar). The downside is they were out of almost everything on the menu. We had very little choice. So we picked the best options we could.

Unfortunately we had a big problem with our robot companion. He couldn't hear or understand anything we were saying due to the DJ playing loud music. I feel as well his language model is not very up to date as he was mixing up a lot of words (even when we tried using completely bland simple English accents). I also tried asking it questions in Japanese, but either my pronunciation is so bad, or again he couldn't hear us, but he could not pick up any words we were saying. When we did manage to get a response we could not hear our companion, not could we hear him sing when he danced as the DJ music was so loud.

So the cafe is a nice idea, but the chat robot companion is fairly pointless if he can't listen and respond.

The food wasn't very nice, and the cocktails were not very good either. We ordered fried chicken, ramen, and rice. The chicken was very fatty, the ramen was very unseasoned and had no taste, but the rice was okay tasting but could have been presented better.

The "cocktails" are not cocktails as such, just cheap alcohol with a mixer served in a metal container. They tasted bland and badly made.

Overall I wouldn't recommend eating or drinking here unless you really really want to but honestly it was a pretty poor experience and not worth it. Very...

For a tourist destination spot that epitomises tech advances - you still have to ring up the restaurant to make a reservation. Unfortunately our Japanese isn’t at a level that we’d be comfortable to call. So we stopped in to see if we could make a reservation in person.

Unfortunately gentlemen at the front desk was unhelpful and frankly unwilling to help us make a reservation. The interaction was brief, and felt forced as though he would have hoped we’d leave rather than help.

We were first there when they opened, and while we attempted to make a booking, he stopped in the middle of our conversation and greeted the line of people that had began to form behind us. He then said he would have to help each of the people behind us before he could finalise our reservation…. If it were one or two people this would be tolerable, but there were 10 people now waiting in line - it was almost farcical as more people milled in and joined the line it became apparent that we we’re being ignored.

After visiting Japan many times I have not one negative thing to say about the people and culture and how beautiful the people of this country are and the sheer willingness to help even when your Japanese doesn’t extend beyond basic at best. This unusual and not a great experience, We hope the guy at the front desk was just having a...