Shinjuku Kabuki Hall / Kabuki Yokocho — Restaurant in Tokyo

The foodcourt is a largest SCAM I ever encountered in the Japan as whole. Strongly discourage to feast / eat / drink here! If you gi here, only use entertainment facilities and Starbucks!

The menu is shared along the whole foodcourt, but depending on the cram you chose, you are suddenly informed most of the menu is not available at this certain seat. Especially the most tasty-looking stuff for a foreigner.

Service didn't really know which seating spots are their and which are of the neighbouring restaurants (like it really matters when the menu shall be shared...).

The food was horrible - only tempura shrimps were good. First gyoza were acceptible, second order of gyoza was burned, broth soup ended up as a very bad onion soup (stuff didn't bother to clear up what the soup really is until it was served).

No english menu available - in a very tourist encouraging place!

Only 1 member of our shop's service spoke English at all, the rest didn't even try, and - opposite to other restaurants throughout Japan - there were no "no-verbal-communication" multi-language cards to assist communication.

Alkoholic drinks are not alkoholic. The most promoted three mixes are in reality two mockdrinks and one semi-alkoholic with probably less than 3% offered with local "sake" at combinis. This semi-alcoholic is blue, and tastes literally like water with lemon. It was to be sweet and sour, was only cold and sour. No alkohol, nor sweet at all.

Service asked for the drinks with alkohol proposed the above one - for 30 USD expectations were high. Ended up to be ca. 1 litre of water with lemon for 30 USD... When we asked the service where's the advertised alkohol in it, they answered "probably people here are lightheaded easily and can't drink that much so it probably (!!!) is there, but not much". That's not what was offered earlier!

Suddenly at the end we are charged for the towels, water and starter as a "seat charge", which was not mentioned nowhere - we were not told even though we were asking for the spot availability.

We received hot towels and cold water (great, that's the reason for 1* instead of 0*...). We also got some starters (I don't remember if it was before or after we ordered) which we expected to be free as we dodn't order them. Note, in Japan, hot towels / hand sanitizers and cold water come with no charge, and starters are sometimes served for free before the meal. As the starter seem filthy (small fishes on overcoocked rice - maybe for locals it's something okay, dunno, for us maybe after a hard sip of vodka, but sober - no way we would order it, not our taste) and served without asking us for consent, we didn't touch it. It smelled bad.

We didn't agree to pay for the seat and starters. It was 350-400ish jpy per serving, so it was like 1400-1600 jpy for us 4. After some argument they agreed to reduce the bill as we were not informed properly. During card payment the service most probably INTENTIONALLY selected Dynamic Currency Conversion to EUR, though I told them I pay in JPY with mutlicurrency card.

Result: My card was charged with very bad conversion rate JPY-EUR with additional 3.5% margin of Shinjuku Kabuki Hall, and then back EUR-JPY by my bank (0% margin fortunately). I was scammed this way for ca. 1100 JPY incl. their 3.5% margin and bad exchange rate of their own. Which is kind of similar sum to what the seat / starter costed! The service by themselves selected EUR on my receipt (!!!), while it clearly states there they shall ask me to select what I wish to do! I just noticed it after 7 days, during founds check. Dodn't expect scam in Japan, as 99.9% of people here are helpful and polite. So after all, they reduced the bill by 1400-1600 jpy, but scammed me with DCC during card payment by 1100 jpy.

Overall, place is beautifully designed and give a great feeling, the games and gachapons are fun and entertakning, you even have a discount by 10 jpy per play while using IC card (Suica / Pasmo), and the nearby Starbucks is superb. But foodcourt is the worst...

TOURIST TRAP AND SCAM! DO NOT EAT AND DO NOT DRINK HERE! ¥10,800 (£52) was spent here on dog foods! SAVE YOURSELF!

This was how the nightmare unfolded:

Stumbled across Kabuki Hall and restaurant named 'CHUGOKU SHIKOKU SHOKUSAI' by accident. The neon lights, artwork, and loud music by the DJ are the vibe to distract your attention away from the food, drinks, and service charge per person scam.

The waiter dumped condiments like pickled cabbage on the table. Without communication that there are condiment charges in the final bill.

Waitresses forced us to order drinks, a minimum of two skewers per dish. Dishes that were delivered from other stalls we have to pay per arrival of a dish.

In the end, the waiter blocked us from exiting. Forced us to pay the final bill by using rude hand and rude facial gestures! Forcing tourists to pay by fear for the remaining 'disgusting dishes' belonging to the stall, unexpected charge for condiments, and unexpected service charge per customer.

The waiters and waitresses hardly spoke any English.

We spent ¥10,800 (£52) on cold, salty, tasteless, burnt, and stale foods. That the dogs would not touch.

Final note: I repeat, save yourself, do not get scammed by the expensive food, drinks, and service charge per person! Extremely poor value for money! The neon lights, artwork, and loud music are there to distract you from the...

It’s unfortunate that a place as fun and unique like this is a tourist trap. The ambience is beautiful with the neon lights, cool art and hanging lanterns everywhere BUT the waiters are definitely scamming tourists. They make you purchase a drink per person even if you order food. Not only that but they give you seemingly “complimentary” appetizers that just consist of tuna and pickled veggies and of course won’t tell you that it WILL show up on the bill later. So when they bring them, just say “iiee” and shake your head unless you want to try them. When we asked for a cup of water one of the waitresses went to go make it and the other waiter dumped them out and gave us water bottles instead which were almost ¥300 each for a mini water bottle. It’s unfortunate that they are representing Japan in such a touristy place because if this was my first experience I’d be disappointed. Luckily not all places are like this, there are much better experiences in different parts of Tokyo or even in Omoide Yokocho (“memory lane” or “piss alley”) which is only a 5 minute walk away. Much more local and just as unique of an experience where they won’t take advantage of you. And they’ll cook right in...