YAKINIKUMAFIA IKEBUKURO by WAGYUMAFIA — Restaurant in Tokyo

I don’t normally go out of my way to leave negative reviews on places. However, I feel compelled to include my experience here.

TL;DR – Avoid this place. It’s overpriced and uses some gross practices to inflate Google reviews and overcharge its guests.

FOOD:

TL;DR – Food tasted good (if overpriced), but the pacing was weird.

The first thing we noticed when looking at the menu is the price of the main course (¥22,000, which as of this writing is about $143.50). That is a VERY expensive meal. We didn’t want alcohol, but we had to pay for water (about ¥700 or $4.50 per person).

The wagyu beef was actually really tasty. The meat itself melts in your mouth. I can’t complain about the flavor.

However, the pacing of the meal was weird. I don’t remember the exact names of the cuts, but the first course were some wagyu cuts, about 2 per person. Following that was a plate full of different cuts (tongue, shoulder, and I believe sirloin and some others). On this plate were cuts that we were told the best and should save for last. They were correct. It was the best cut.

After that, they brought out the liver. They told us that some guests opt out of trying it and choose shoulder instead. We had come to Japan to go on an adventure, so we thought “why not?” The waitress also specifically said that the liver was her favorite. It was…interesting. I think the texture just wasn’t for me.

After this was the intestine, which (again) we decided to try. It wasn’t bad. Just felt like a fattier, chewier beef.

What’s weird about this is why not save the premiere wagyu cuts for the end? Why follow that up with liver, a food with a notoriously acquired taste?

SERVICE:

TL;DR – Over-the-top cheerfulness and pressuring for high reviews and ordering more food.

The staff at YAKINIKUMAFIA IKEBUKURO are loud and peppy. EXTREMELY peppy. To the point that it was rather cringe. Fake over-the-top laughing, plastered smiles, and loud shouts and celebrations. Joyful exclamations every time they refilled out water. That sort of thing.

After the meal, they followed us to the elevator to wave to us as we went down the elevator, and it just felt like they were trying REALLY hard to make sure we remembered them as being friendly. In fact, throughout the meal, waitresses would give us their cards with their names and faces on it. We thought that was weird, but didn’t think too much about it.

There were a couple of red flags I noticed throughout the experience. The first we noticed was that the staff asked for a Google review. That’s uncommon in Japan, but not necessarily bad. However, the staff was watching over our shoulder as the person in our party wrote the review. The person in our party who wrote the 5-star review later told me that they felt really uncomfortable and pressured to write that review. If you’re wondering how this establishment has such high reviews (and more than 2,000 of them), this is why.

Additionally, they asked us if we wanted to have dessert. We politely declined (we had made plans to get dessert at a separate location afterwards). However, they asked us repeatedly until we were so worn out that we finally just said yes.

W we finally got our check. We knew it would be expensive, but the check specifically included spaces for the names of staff members and how much to tip. Tipping is not a thing you ask for in Japan.

That was when it hit me: YAKINIKUMAFIA IKEBUKURO is not a Japanese restaurant. It’s a restaurant in Japan that specifically targets foreign tourists. Hence the inflated google reviews and the pressure to order more food. Their website specifically says that their mission is to “spread tipping culture nationwide”, but like…why? Nobody likes tipping.

CONCLUSION:

It feels gross to come to a place that feels so cynically about its guests. I got the impression that they expect foreign tourists to spend a lot and be distracted by the over-the-top peppiness of the staff to not see that it's a pretty blatant...

This is a terrible restaurant that has inflated its rating with tons of fake reviews, but at the same time, I’m grateful for the lesson it taught me on how to spot fake reviews. Before I describe this bad dining experience, let me share a quick tip. This restaurant has a high rating, with over 2,000 reviews and an average score of 4.8. However, if you look closely at the high-rated reviews, you'll notice that many of the reviewers have very few other restaurant reviews. In contrast, the users who left low ratings tend to have a much richer history of reviews. Compared to other highly-rated, reputable restaurants, you’ll find that genuine high ratings usually come from users with a substantial review history. Now, let me tell you about my 22,000-yen dining experience at this restaurant:

Environment: As soon as you step out of the elevator, you're hit by an unpleasant smell, the kind you’d expect near the backdoor of a restaurant. Inside, the tables are made of cheap metal, giving the feel of a low-end cafeteria. I initially thought the beef would be grilled over charcoal, but instead, the food was cooked on an iron skillet, more like teppanyaki. The quality of the skillet was poor, as you can see from the photos I’ve shared.

Food: The beef was of very poor quality, and you could tell it wasn’t fresh just by looking at the raw meat. The thin slices were loose and tasteless, while the thicker pieces were tough and hard to chew. Regardless of the cut, the beef had no aroma and was bland. The seasoning salt looked like a strange powder, lacking the grainy texture of real salt. It was overly salty and lacked the fragrance you’d expect from premium salt. Worst of all, I had an upset stomach afterward. The best items from this meal were a single okra and the cola, which was probably Coca-Cola.

Service: There is no tableside service here; you have to grill the meat yourself. Because the beef was so loose, small pieces would stick to the skillet, and no one came to handle the issue or offer to change the skillet. (See photos for reference.)

Special features: The staff are extremely enthusiastic—almost to the point of being over-the-top. They perform a little show and ask you to record it on your phone, which felt awkward. When I received the bill, they also suggested leaving a tip, offering three tiers, with the lowest being 18%, and the next level seemingly at 25%. I chose to ignore the tip suggestion. The overly enthusiastic service and constant smiling might be the only highlights, but they can't make up for the bad food and poor overall experience, especially when the tip starts at 18%. BTW, it's the first time I was asked for tips in Japan. Really "special".

Conclusion: This meal was priced at 22,000 yen, but I believe the actual value shouldn't exceed 4,000 yen, assuming they improve the hygiene conditions—at the very least, it shouldn’t cause an upset stomach after dining. The only value this restaurant provided me was a reminder that even in a city like Tokyo, you can still encounter overpriced and disappointing restaurants. This was my first time in Tokyo having such an expensive yet unsatisfactory meal, but I did learn a valuable lesson, and also figured out how to spot fake reviews. I heard that Google is going to crack down this kind of behavior. Ihope that they can find...

Terrible. Don’t go here, not worth the money… which included a tip?!?

Our experience sounds identical to Ben Chiu’s below, but we don’t know him.

Booked a reservation for 2 here since we saw Instagram posts about it and thought it would be a fairly popular restaurant. We were the only 2 there the ENTIRE time. The waitress greeted us at the elevator, which we thought was pretty cool at first, but realized it was probably because she had NOTHING else to do.

She sat us down and went over the menu: 22,000¥ for the full plate and 12,000¥ for the half plate. We ordered the half plate which consisted of 10 small pieces of shoulder and thigh and vegetables, not even a bowl of rice. We couldn’t visually tell if the beef was of good quality because the lighting in the restaurant was so poor (probably intentional), the taste and tenderness also did not meet expectations.

While we waited for the waitress to bring us our incredibly mediocre ramen (included at the end of the meal), we watched as the staff started to place sauces at the counters and tables around us. One member ended up spilling salt on the counter and plate next to us and proceeded to clean it up with his hands. Still, no one came in to dine.

Our experience was a little awkward as well. There were times during the meal where the waitress would tell us to video her and take a slow mo of her, where she and the staff would proceed to do a little show in hopes you will post on social media. She also urged us to order more and drink more, definitely not used to getting that much attention and pressure while “trying” to enjoy a meal.

When we received the bill, the waitress pointed out the tip section. It suggested a tip starting at 18% that can be given to the staff of our choosing. So on top of the outrageously priced meal, they expected a tip. Never have I had to tip in Japan.

This was definitely a learning experience, we saw high reviews for this restaurant, but after closer review (after the fact) we realized a lot of them are...