Kohan Restaurant — Restaurant in South Island

06/04/2019 - Went to Lake Tekapo for a day trip and decided to have dinner there. We ended up at this Japanese restaurant as I saw a high rating on the Google Maps.

We didn’t make a reservation and had to wait for the waitress to check on their booking. There are two lines; one for people who made reservations and one for the walk-in people (like us). Anyway, we waited for [approximately] 10 minutes before we were taken to our table.

We ordered teriyaki salmon (pan fried salmon in teriyaki sauce with wasabi & ginger), Tatsuta-age salmon (miso & sake malt marinated deep fried salmon with green salad) and a kid’s meal (consists of JFC fried chicken, edamame, Japanese omelette, fruits & a small udon noodle). I also ordered a four small pieces of salmon sushi roll.

For start, there’s nothing special about the teriyaki salmon and salmon roll. These dishes can be ordered in the Japanese restaurants in Christchurch. Basically, the teriyaki sauce was poured over the salmon fillet and salmon roll, well it is a sushi roll that you can buy from any sushi shops.

Anyway, the tatsuta-age salmon was different; I never had it at any Japanese restaurants in Christchurch. It was tasty and delicious, with the flavour infused into the salmon pieces. I enjoyed this dish very much and wish to have some more as it came with three small salmon pieces. Anyway, none of the dishes that I ordered come with rice. You will need to order separately.

I do recommend to book ahead or make a reservation to ensure there is a table for you and your entourage. It is well worth it.

Overall, it was a good experience from this Japanese restaurant.

Each dish that we ordered was kinda small size. It will not fill up your tummy and I do suggest to try ordering something else if you still feel hungry.

This is a child-friendly restaurant.

This is a licensed (🍻🍸🍷🍾🍹🍺) eatery and a BYO. There is no outdoor dining area.

There is onsite parking 🅿.

They accept cash and EFTPOS including credit card payments (Paywave payments are available, for those who want to know).

Would I go back? Yes 😀. Well worth a try and you will not be disappointed. Food: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of 5. It was tasty 😋. Ambience: ⭐ ⭐⭐ out of 5. Plenty of local and overseas tourists, and this place was quite noisy. Price: ⭐⭐⭐ out of 5. Reasonably priced for a Japanese restaurant at Lake Tekapo. Customer service: The staff were friendly and...

The sky was already dark as we were nearing Lake Tekapo. The kids were fast asleep at the back of our car while I tried to concentrate driving. It was not helping that the one next to me had dozed off as well. All the hilly terrains around me become white as I kept on the journey. The it hit me that if was snow! What!? Snowing in early June? It turned out that Lake Tekapo was inaudated with heavy snows a day before - i woke up the kids excitedly and they were like ooh aah for this was the first time seeing real snow in their lives.

When we finally reached our accommodation for the night and checked in, we were famished and quickly headed to the town centre. I have only one place in mind - Kohan, a popular Japanese restaurant. Sure enough, it was full house but we wanted to eat Japanese food so much so we got ourselves in the waiting list. Meanwhile the kids got crazy playing in the snow despite the chilling weather.

Operated by a Japanese, this restaurant was so popular that the crowd seemed never ending (at least during the time I dined there). ◾salmon don set that came with thick cut salmon sashimi, ikura, miso soup and pickles - ◾Tempura udon - nothing beats slurping a bowl of piping hot noodle in this kind of weather.. I tell you. ◾teriyaki chicken roll - the eldest wanted it. ◾Tempura Bento Box - consisted of Japanese omelette (tamago), tatsuta-age salmon, broccoli, salmon and other fresh sashimi, teriyaki chicken, prawn tempura with 4 pieces salmon roll sushi and miso soup.

We ate everything like a pack of hungry wolves. At last our tummies were full, and extremely satisfied because we had been eating western food most of the time. Note.. remember as per New Zealand standard, the portion is quite big for most dishes.

P.S: Early reservation is...

Disappointing customer service... Sign says last orders for 8pm. We arrived at 7:45pm as we came into town late. We were going to get takeaway and since we arrived late arrived at the door at 7:45pm. Door was locked and we waited outside for 5mins where all the customer service staff just ignored us. I even tried calling the restaurant to let them know we were outside and only wanting takeaway and as I heard the phone ring the staff member hung up the call before picking up. Here's the thing... We wouldn't mind if we were told politely that no more orders would be taken. That's totally fine we'd have said thank you and walked out and I'd have avoided this negative review. However we were treated rudely without a word being said.

The fact I tried calling and nobody picked up to say they were closed or let the phone ring shows that when the staff hung it up it was intentional. Dare I say intentional that they knew we were outside the restaurant calling. It's a shame coming from Australia we were told to try the food here. Even after the experience today we certainly would not be coming here at all. Worst part was so many customers were still in the store some hadn't even had their orders given to them yet and they had just been taken. I'd recommend amending your times to say last orders by 7:30pm.

Please do consider it's not difficult to be nice and acknowledge people. As I said even if we were told the kitchen is closed we'd have happily been on our way and come back the next day. We sure aren't now. Luckily we were served by another restaurant within the same vicinity who were more than happy to do our takeaway meal. They also had the same "finish time" and we got our meal and were out of there before most of their...