Kiraku Japanese Restaurant & Takeaways — Restaurant in Waitematā

Terrible service and blatant discrimination We have been loyal customers of Kiraku for years, always recommending it to our friends, but we’ve never received good service. Today at lunch, my boyfriend went to buy something else, and when he came back and tried a bite of my noodles, a female staff member immediately said he couldn’t have it, citing a “per person minimum of $19.” I explained it was just one bite, but she refused and was extremely rude. We decided to take our food to go and were charged a $1 packaging fee, using a cheap Countdown plastic bag—ridiculous. During checkout, a male staff member said “Chinese” followed by something in Japanese, which we found offensive and discriminatory. On top of that, we were fully compliant smoking outside, yet a female staff member claimed we couldn’t because “the smoke would drift inside”—completely unreasonable. Friends of ours, both locals and internationals, have also experienced extremely mean behavior: controlled-volume laughter or playing a quiet game in the restaurant gets reprimanded, while staff act inconsistently themselves. In short, Kiraku’s food might be okay, but their service is hostile, discriminatory, and completely unacceptable. I will not be coming back and would not recommend...

Extremely poor and rude service. We saw the no payWave, cash only sign outside so I went to an atm to withdraw cash (2minute walk to the atm). My wife waited outside but after a while decided to go in and look at the menu with the idea that she would order while waiting. After 2minutes she was told seating was for customers only (she explained I was getting cash but fell on deaf ears or they didn’t care) and shooed her out of the store. There was a total of 2customers and no one else waiting, it wasn’t busy at all. Unfortunately in the brief 2minutes of experience we decided to go elsewhere for food. From my experience I haven’t met rude chefs (if the owner isn’t aware you have bad customer service then you don’t care, if that person was the owner then go learn some basic manners) whom cook good food, they are usually modest and polite (like most Japanese people), there are plenty of alternative Japanese restaurants with similar food. If you want bad service along with your food I would highly...

This place replicates whatever one knows about those small alleyway Japanese ramen place. Limited seating, kitchen across the counter, little-to-no noise, broth boiling in the corner. Love their broth, visited today for lunch. Know what you want to order before entering (they've got menu outside). Reason for saying that being it's a 2 person set-up, so taking your own time to ponder while a staff member is standing at the counter, away from the kitchen isn't fair :). My wife and I ordered Prawn ramen and Teriyaki Chicken ramen plus Pork Gyoza. Loved the broth, never fails. I wish either one of us had ordered some other broth base to explore as our had a similar base (not complaining). Gyozas were crispy perfection, went well with their dipping sauces. Priced slightly higher than a typical ramen place, and completely worth it. The overall experience isn't like a typical ramen place for sure. Friendly staff, wish I could...