Koyama. — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

Was super excited to try this place for lunch whilst in Edinburgh with my girlfriend after seeing good reviews. We arrived at around 13:40 and stood waiting to be spoken to and seated until approx 13:50. The menu looked promising, with photos of the food and a tempting lunch menu. We decided on the salmon and avocado roll and chicken gyoza for our starters. I’m not normally a huge fan of sushi but the avocado salmon roll was really good. The chicken gyoza was hot, fresh and tasty. So far, so good - despite the slow service. For our mains, my girlfriend ordered a regular spiced chicken ramen, and I ordered the hell spiced chicken ramen (I like the spice!). We anticipated a tasty hot bowl of ramen after a cold morning of -1 degrees celcius walking around Edinburgh. However upon receiving our food, we were extremely disappointed to be served a lukewarm dish which at first looked delicious, but tasted like the water that an artist might dip their paintbrush in. When the chef brought our food to us, he said “if the spice is not enough, let the server know and we can fix it”. After pressing the service call button upwards of 5 times over the span of 20-25 minutes, and watching the ONE waitress serve at least 3 tables more than once EACH, we were left with cold ramen and hungry bellies before finally being tended to. I’d have understood this service if it was a super busy weekend or holiday, however this was around 2pm on a Friday afternoon and there were approx. 6 tables of guests at the time we went, AND we were there for the longest time except from one table who was seen to multiple times before we were . When the server finally approached our table, she came with the card machine in hand, ready to take our payment. We both had full bowls of ramen with only a few bites missing, and my girlfriend politely explained that we were hoping to get more spice added to our dishes, however they were now cold and we had waited so long for simple service that we would just like to pay the bill and leave. The servers response to this was “there is chilli oil on your table for more spice” (obviously not the same as having a warming broth with your ramen). We were not offered a fresh dish, or even for more spice to be added to our current dishes as mentioned by the chef. No apology, no discount offered for the poor service and poor dish, so we just paid and left. Very disappointing main meal, which is such a shame because the decor is beautiful and traditional and the sushi and gyoza were fantastic. Would definitely recommend that this place should have more serving staff, and to rename the ramen “Hell”...

TL;DR (not everyone wants to have a TedTalk for a review) Service was terrible No help was made for my gluten intolerant mum - she really had to push to get something to eat Drinks tasted watered down Quality of food left a lot to be desired Lack of utensils to actually eat and enjoy food BUT, food did taste good

I would love to be sitting here writing a great review for this place, alas, that is not the case. I've been coming to Koyama at least once a year since 2019 (2020 excluded) and it has always been a fantastic experience. Except for tonight.

It began when we entered with my mum asking if they could provide anything not containing gluten. This prompted the waitress to promptly and firmly say no. Thankfully, someone from the Kitchen was there and said it was fine and could easily be sorted. Although this was then followed by the two arguing in the kitchen for a few minutes until the waitress came out and said fine. Not off to a great start.

We ordered two diet cokes, a gluten free chicken donburi and a chicken sukiyaki. The cokes came swiftly, although the colour looked a bit off. After a sip the coke was lacking fizz and tasted a touch watery.

My mum's donburi arrived first which was to be expected. However, the fact it was fairly soupy and wildly different to any donburi we have had before both in Koyama and elsewhere. My mum also found the quality to be somewhat lacking - especially due to some badly cut chicken thigh.

A short while later, my sukiyaki arrived. It came as expected, in a cast iron pot that was being heated. What was unexpected that I was not given a bowl or spoon - as everyone knows the best way to consume broth is with chopsticks. The lack of bowl and spoon also meant I couldn't take the food out to let it cool down and eat it in a sensible manner, that would be too logical. Instead, I had to sit there whilst the hot pot was bubbling away and I got to slowly east some chunks of chicken whilst trying not to burn my tongue too badly. Similar to the donburi - the quality of the chicken left a lot to be desired. Dealing with a 10cm strip of chicken with only chopsticks was not something I expected to be dealing with. Thankfully due to the stagnation in food, and having no way to let mine cool down until the flame died, I borrowed my mums spoon which helped.

So, after all this. Why 2 stars? At the end of the day, the sukiyaki at least still tasted really good. It was just let down by the quality of the meat and the (lack...

very sad with my experience here. i love places like this and go to them often, but was thoroughly dissatisfied today. the salmon avocado roll was good, the gyoza with a "side salad" (cabbage and carrots) was good. masumi sake was okay. there were two other tables filled upon entry, we waited ten minutes to be seated. only one server on duty and the cooks were looking at us through the kitchen door window as if hoping we would leave. when seated, it took a short amount of time to get our orders in and food came quickly other than the ramen. server had to ask if we only had one or two ramens (there were two of us and we ordered two separate ramens) my girlfriend ordered the Hell ramen while I ordered the Regular, both of a chicken category. I love spice and so does she, we were expecting something that would make our eyes water a bit as Asian spices usually do. however, when it came out, my ramen tasted like tonkatsu and hers tasted like a severely diluted shin ramyun. the runny eggs were cold and the bamboo shoots were oddly sweet. the chicken was like overly fried chicken nuggets and also oddly sweet as well as chewy. the cook brought us our ramen and said "if you need it more spicy then please call us" we pressed the call button at least six times while our ramen went cold and the noodles soaked up too much broth to be a good texture. when the server finally came over after we pressed the "pay" button rather than the "call" button, i tried to voice my concerns which i never do. i said to her "yeah, we tried to call for this to be taken back and more spice added but now it's cold so we would just like to pay" she opened up the old, almost empty cup of chili oil sitting next to us and said "yeah we have this, it makes it spicier". i know what chili oil is, and i dont like it. we wanted our broth to be spicy, not filled with chili flakes and semi-spicy oil to be dumped into it. she offered no help even after our explanation of what the cook said and instead flipped over the pay machine to show us our bill. maybe i should have been more vocal but this is the first time in my life ive tried to ask for a change in a meal from what i (thought) i ordered and was disappointed. last point, during our several "call" button presses, she has taken the orders of and served three other tables in who had either been there or came in during our visit. overall not happy and shocked that i had to pay full price for food that we didn't even eat. i would never...