YAYOI Japanese Teishoku Restaurant — Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur

In the past several years, we often ordered sushi as welcome-new-year foods in USA. This year, as the first time spending the new year in Malaysia, we still wanted to try some Japanese foods, but not sushi. So we decided to go J’s Gate food court on top of Lot 10. We arrived there around 5:30pm, and after 6pm, it was getting more crowded with people who celebrate the new year. We looked around the floor and decided to give Yayoi a shot.

In 2007, I was a fresh business man who loved Yayoi Ken in Japan. But this Yayoi goes a little more fancy route!

Our orders Yuzu floats Miso katsu chicken plate with mini chirashi don Sukiyaki hot pot plate

Yuzu float - 3.5 stars It tasted good. I love yuzu flavor, so I enjoyed it. But I did not like the way they serve. Chunk of yuzu jam on the bottom of glass, and we have to open the carbohydrated water can, pour it into glass and mix it ourselves. They put a big chunk of ice, so it spills everywhere while we scoop jam up and down. I wish they made a drink first and then put ice cubes in the end.

Miso katsu plate - 5 stars The first bite of miso chicken katsu really reminds me of one I had in Tokyo before. Strong miso flavor with still juicy chicken with crunchy coating. Chirashi has fresh sea foods with surprising eel cubes. It also matched with miso sauce left over after we quickly finished the katsu part. Miso soup used red miso, which reminds me of my ancestors house from childhood. And the flavor was not watery. Still strong miso soup. I liked it. Cucumber pickles and lettuce salad were fresh. It was a really a complete set.

Sukiyaki hot pot plate - 5 stars They have chicken dashi hotpot and sukiyaki (sweet soy sauce based soup) hot pot. They served it within 20 minutes, so I was a little skeptical that the flavor did not go through the ingredients. But I was wrong, they did a great job and all of foods in the hot pot were well flavored by the soup base. I especially loved green leeks and tofu. They were cooked and flavored perfectly to my taste. If you don't really wanna try all-you-can-eat hotpot like in other places, and just want to try sukiyaki flavor, I recommend this dish.

As a whole, I really enjoyed foods here. Will definitely come back for so many other menus. If you wanna try out Japanese combo meals other than sushi, you can...

I have previously dined-in this exact branch and I enjoyed my meal. However, the most recent incident made me not want to go back ever. I ordered their Curry Katsu Chicken. The cutleries came, the fork was dirty, as if they have forgotten to wash it. No issues on that. I requested for a change.

Halfway through my meal, I noticed there's eyebrow hair in between the rice. Sure, it could have very well been my eyebrows but:-

1. I was scooping my rice and it was then that I realised ew there's a hair there, in between the rice;
2. Had it been my eyebrow hair, it would have been at a visible spot, not when I needed to separate my rice to eat.

I was very disgusted at that point of time and I immediately notified the staff.

When we were exiting to pay the bill, there was no acknowledgement by the employee that I had a very unpleasant meal. We were required to pay the full bill. I then requested to speak to the manager.

The attitude of the manager 🤢🤮. Instead of asking if there's anything that they could improve on, immediately he went 'You ate almost all'. Well hello yes, but that doesn't negate the fact that I just had a meal with eyebrow hair as an ingredient? There were still three slices of chicken left and in total I ate about 4 slices so I guess I 'ate almost all' according to the manager's words.🤷🏻‍♀️

He walked away when I raised my concern hahahahahahahah such good customer service over there heheheh

We paid in full.

To summarize:

1. None of the employees were wearing cap or whatsoever to cover their hair;
2. Their cleanliness was purportedly ranked 'A' WOW';
3. Manager has extremely low emotional intelligence and unable to maneuver around...

the overall environment and food were good, but the service not entirely, especially this one female staff. when i decided to put the dogs on the chair, she walked up to me and with a stern and unfriendly tone told me “PLEASE CHANGE”. that was still fine, as i understand that most places don’t necessarily allow pets to be on the chair. what struck me even more was that when she was wiping down the chair, she was looking at my direction. and i wanted to borrow a pen to do some work, and she told me, again with the not so friendly tone, “INSIDE”. i had the dogs with me and i can’t just just leave them all by themselves and it would have been much appreciated if i could i borrow the pen momentarily. mind you, the distance from the table i was sat and the door entrance was just 3-4 feet apart. i understand that these might seem like minor issues to even bring up, but crm is a really important aspect for businesses and there is always a nicer way to say something. this was also my first time dining at the restaurant, and honestly probably my last. when i turned to say thank you, the staff did not even turn around and nod when the back...