Yakitori Sumire Shinjuku大ガード店 — Restaurant in Tokyo

Never again.

I've been here three times previously, and always thought the food was just alright. The all-you-can-drink lemon sour deal is pretty good though.

I've been living in Japan for 31 years and speak Japanese fluently. I tried to get a seat here two nights ago. I told the host in Japanese that I was eating alone - he panicked and ran away for five minutes, then came back point at a translation app on his phone. I asked him (in Japanese again) to just tell me what he wanted to say. He told me they were full. Fine. I told him he should have just told me what was what from the beginning.

I went back the next night. Again even though I was speaking in Japanese the host was replying in English. Waited 20 minutes and was seated. The server came by, dropped off the tablet set to English, and immediately ran away again. Whatever. I looked for the all-you-can-drink deal, which he had explained to other customers upon seating them but not to me, and couldn't find it. I called the server over and asked them if they had it, and he said they did. TELL ME THEN. Trying to navigate the strange translations on the English menu was confusing, so I called the server back and asked him to get me a Japanese tablet. He changed the settings. Fine. Ordered a bunch of dishes. Waiting. Server drops off the free cabbage plate and runs off. No chopsticks. No hand towel. I flag down the server again and ask for these. I think he's starting to realize that things aren't going well.

The food, once again, is just fine. Some of it is under-seasoned (wrapped green pepper), much of it is overcooked. It's the same grill guy that's always there, and he's pretty swamped, but it's still disappointing.

The main issue is this - if you can't handle a foreigner who has been speaking Japanese longer than most of your staff, how do you think you can handle tourists? You folks were fine before Japan opened up, but now that the tourists are coming you see every foreigner as a problem in your life. The service was awful and the food...

This was the worst place ever to go as a tourist. The staff is extremely racist. They had empty tables and chairs and they did not want to have me dine there. I was just 1 person. After me 3 - 1 table people came. They got a table After that a group of 4 and a group of 7 came all of them got a table This seemed like extreme racist behaviour . I warn everyone to stay away from...

The skewers taste good. But beware of the cabbage that they serve. We were served a bowl of cabbage without ordering and we thought it was complimentary. It ended up that we were charged 330 yen per person for this “unlimited refill” cabbage. I think the staff should have explained and ask...