THE PUBLIC RED AKASAKA — Restaurant in Tokyo

Today my husband and I wanted to go to a western bar and restaurant to have a nice lunch date, and we remembered that we came here with our friend once, we really liked it, so we came all the way here again.

It was Saturday around 1.30pm, we didn’t make a reservation, but it wasn’t too many people, went we went in, the staff asked us to find a table we like to sit ourselves. Their lunch set and happy hour deal are really good. My husband ordered a big size “Today’s beer”, and the “Yonezawa beef classic cheese burger with coleslaw”. I ordered the “US ribeye roll steak”, also from a la cart menu the “BBQ buffalo wings”.

We waited for around 20 minutes for the food, but we didn’t mind to wait, the beer came first, it tasted fruity and really good, even I like it very much.

My husband’s cheese burger tasted good, I love how crispy the buns were. The coleslaw was very good too, wish we can order a big size for us. The chips were thick and crispy, we both like it.

My steak was in good size, I was a bit worried that they might overcook it, because they didn’t asked me how do I like my steak, but the chef did an amazing job, perfect medium rare, exactly how I like it! And it tasted juicy and tender, perfect with the onion sauce. My chips were more thin and long, compared to my husband’s, I like mine better. Just such a shame that they don’t have mayonnaise, cause I love eating chips with ketchup and mayonnaise together.

We ordered the BBQ buffalo wings, but they accidentally gave us the spicy flavour, we told them and they changed it for us. The wings were like half wings actually, a bit small, but the taste was very good, with a bit of the blue cheese sauce, yummy!

We love the atmosphere here, and all of the food was delicious, we had an enjoyable lunch date, will definitely...

After a day of fun drinking experiences in Tokyo, we returned to the area we were staying and stopped into The Public as our final place. When we got there, it took awhile for someone to come talk to us. The place wasn’t as busy as I had seen it, and actually felt very quiet so I was surprised. Someone did eventually come seat us, and after we were seated they forgot about our group entirely and were only servicing the other tables around us. We actually got up to go put our order in directly at the bar after about 20 minutes of waiting, and then they said they would send someone over. Once our server came, we ordered sake for the table. The sake was overpriced, and pretty generic. We decided to try to keep our group's energy up and give the staff some patience as serving can be such a hard job. But they again forgot about us even though the place had only become slightly busier. So we again, walked up and found someone to get us a bill.

Giving a 1 star, just because it was really overpriced and the staff was so unhelpful. Maybe on a different night it would’ve been a different experience, but with my experience I can only say it may be worth it to search for a different bar...

私たちの横に座っていたカップルの男性の1人が、革靴を脱ぎ、さらに靴下を脱ぎ、その足をテーブルの上にあげ、私と友人の女性にその汚い足を見ろと行ってきました。非常に不快で、その様子を店員が見ているにも関わらず、無視して通り過ぎました。（そもそもそのカップルのパートナーの女性が何も思わないことも不思議でしたがそこは彼らの自由なので。）教養やマナーのない人間がいる店を選んだのは私たちで、この金額感であればそのような顧客がいるのも仕方がないため自分たちの責任ではありますが、まず店員が素通りしたことに驚きました。また、テーブルで会計しようと考えていましたが、その男性があまりにも下品だったため、エントランスの会計の場所まで行き会計をする際に、状況を会計の店員の方に口頭で伝えましたが、どのお客ですか？と聞かれ、どの席の方かを説明しましたが、特に何もせず、「すいません」と一言言われ、では会計はXXX円です、という対応でした。「すいません」とのことでしたので、「あなた方のせいではないですが、あの下品なお客さんはまだ足を上げて同席している女性に裸足を見せていますが、大丈夫ですか？」と伝えましたが、特に返事がなく、彼らのもとに行くこともなく（ではなぜどこの客か、と聞いたのかその意図が不明）店に来ている客の質の低さと、店員の方が何が問題かをわかっていない様子に驚きました。

Since there were many foreign customers, and especially in Western countries, such actions by men like this are often considered highly unpleasant and close to being criminal in public places. I'm writing in English to ensure that foreign visitors don't have an unpleasant experience in Japan.This restaurant has very low-level staff who can't handle rude customers. One of the men sitting next to us took off his leather shoes, then his socks, and placed his dirty feet on the table which is unbelievable, instructing my friend and me to look at his disgusting feet. This made us extremely uncomfortable, and despite the fact that the restaurant staff witnessed this, they chose to ignore it and walked past. (By the way, we also found it very strange that the female partner of this disgusting guy didn't seem to think anything of it. But that is none of our business.)It was our decision to choose a place with uncultured and ill-mannered individuals, and considering the price range, it's expected to encounter such customers. However, what surprised me the most was the fact that the staff simply walked by without addressing the situation. Moreover, we intended to settle our bill at our table, but because that man's behavior was so distasteful, we went to the entrance to pay. When I explained the situation to a different staff member verbally, they asked, "Which customer are you talking about?" I described which table they were sitting at, but I received no response other than a brief "I'm sorry." Then, they proceeded to tell me the amount for the bill. I mentioned, "It's not your fault, but that rude customer is still displaying bare feet to the lady seated with him. Is everything okay?" However, there was no response, and I was taken aback by the low quality of customers in the restaurant and the staff's apparent lack of understanding of the issue. Side note - I thought that Westerners would be surprised, but even after lodging a complaint with the manager, this is Japan, so of course, we were billed the full amount, and we paid it in full. Especially for people living in the U.S. like me, I don't think it's hard to imagine how unbelievable such a response is for...