Cedric Seet
Google
Great food, udon was springy and cooked to perfection, they even have their own special butter.
However the main star of the show would be their tempura, the cheese and kakuni pork tempura were exceptional. And left me wanting for more.
Having to queue for more than 3 hours in total left a bitter taste my mouth though. For the uninitiated, there are 2 ways to go about getting the food here.
Firstly, you can skip most of the queue and get in immediately if you paid 2000 yen.
Secondly, you can join the normal queue without paying and mind you there will be 2 legs to queue from. Firstly, you will have to get a virtual queue ticket that tells you how many groups of people are in front of you before it’s your turn, and during this period, you will be unable to queue at the storefront to avoid overcrowding. When the virtual ticket mentions it’s time for you to get into the restaurant, you start queuing again at the storefront. Mind you while queuing at the storefront it took about a good 40 mins as well.
From my own personal experience, came here at 1030am, half an hour before opening time at 11 and was told to get the virtual queue ticket first. By the time I got in it was 1:45pm.
This is where the bitter taste comes in, 2 points, first, when you’re told you’re able to come to the storefront via the virtual ticket one would assume you’ll be able to enter straight and not wait for another 40 mins. Upon arrival, you start to realize that it’s first come first serve to queue at the storefront, meaning that virtual queue lets people know that they can come to the storefront and whoever rushes over first gets to go first. Meaning there is no proper numbering of your so called “queue”. Secondly, having to watch people who paid to “reserve” and just cut in before you while queuing at the storefront for another long stretch of time is just tasteless. Basically it’s just people who paid 2000 yen per person to skip and cut your queue. Resulting in longer waiting times.
Upon entering, while respectful, I could feel how cold this restaurant was. There was no smile and everyone was just sardined and shoehorned into this small place. It almost felt suffocating.
The food while great, is not worth the experience one will feel at all. You’ll blow half a day just for lunch. Sure, everyone needs to make a living and it’s their choice on how they run their business, but it’s lost on me.