YAMAYOSHIShijokawaramachi

We did not have time to go to Fukui, so we went to Yamayoshi in Kyoto to try the Matsuba crab. The service was reasonably good. The waiter explained to us our options and tailored the courses to meet our requirements. The Matsuba crab tasted good when grilled or in shabyshabu. However it was not ...much better than the snow crab we had in Hokkaido, but the price was significantly higher. I thought that the high price might be a result of restricted supply (only 6 months in a year) and slow growth of the crab (take 8 years to grow to 800 grams). In terms of freshness, I have reservations to say that it is the best. Another thing that I did not understand was that although the displayed price was for one crab, we had to order in multiple of two, ie 2 crabs, 4 crabs, etc. Also we were not allowed to mix the types of crabs, eg we could not order one Matsuba crab and one snow crab. It was really odd. I cannot recommend Yamayoshi to other travellers, not because of the Matsuba crab, but due to the odd business practice.

Visited November 2018

The restaurant was about 5 minutes' walk south on Kawaramachi Avenue from Kyoto Takashimaya department store (i.e. the Shijo Street intersection). Above the restaurant entrance was a very large model crab. The two of us went there to eat Matsuba crab (also called pine-needle crab). We entered at st...reet level, and took off our shoes for storing in a locker. We then took the lift one floor up to the dining area, which was organised into two or more rooms with tables for different seating styles. Not normally crab-eating, I asked if the restaurant offered any non-crab dishes. The answer was 'no'. To have a Matsuba crab dinner, we first chose how many crabs to order (17,000 yen for one crab, 24,000 yen for two ...). These prices were for each person. The two of us ordered two crabs, and so it was 24,000 yen x 2 = 48,000 yen, plus service charge and consumption tax (about 20-25% altogether). That turned out to be much more than enough food for two people. Service did not go much beyond bringing the cut-up crabs, lighting the small stoves for heating the hot-pots of soup, and lighting the gas stove fixed to the table for grilling the crab. The restaurant offered two slightly different ways to serve the crab: Kaiseki, and Kanisuki. The Kaiseki way included tempura and sushi, both of which were of very basic quality and could have been easily skipped. With a small quantity of sake, the bill came to about 70,000 yen. After paying for the bill, each of us was given a small card stating a restaurant guarantee that the crab we had was good quality Matsuba crab. Not Japanese-speaking, and not experienced enough in this sort of restaurants, we had no way to tell whether the crab was truly good quality. All we could do was assume the restaurant did not rip us off. One thing for sure was that this was not at all meant to be a fine dining restaurant, although a meal could be rather pricey. This is not necessarily a bad thing for people who just enjoy eating good crabs cooked in basic ways.

Visited December 2017

I don’t often feel discriminated against, but at this restaurant I definitely felt it (or just extremely extremely poor service). We had a party of 3 and ordered the snow crab set menu which included a starter, nabe (soup), crab sashimi, grilled crab, tempura, steamed egg (chawanmushi), Sushi, and a... side order gratin crab. I’ll start with the food: The snow crab was fresh and the sashimi was nice. The crab was also nicely cut to make it easily accessible. Now for the bad.... the nabe is suppose to cook at your table and when the fire started the staff left. After smelling something burning, we lifted the lid and realized there was no soup (ie no nabe) and all the vegetables charred... we told the staff and received a nonchalant “opps, sorry. I think the other staff served it right?”. The tempura was lukewarm (and that’s being generous). The sushi served at the end was basically a giant stack of rice. Considering that you’re going to spend at least 8,000 yen / person, this was definitely not worth it. Now for the service: The service was just terrible. There were 3 of us and combined we’re fluent in Mandarin, English, and Japanese but we speak mandarin together. We made reservations in Japanese and the second we asked for English (for me) and Chinese (for my mom) menu we were told that they’d get a Chinese server (although we never asked). The Chinese server tried hard but was clearly inexperienced and got the menu wrong. She explained that the 3 options were 8,000 / person (min order 2 ppl) for one crab, 10,000 / person for two crabs, or 12,000 / person for three crabs. Given that we had 3, we opted for 3 crabs. Once the crab came she explained that it was 12,000 / person for one bigger crab.... detail we’d like to know before ordering. Other disappointing aspects was that we rang the bell 3 times to get our order taken but no one came (I had to go out and find someone). The table next to us got refill for tea at least 2 times but no one came to ours. Then of course there was the nabe incident mentioned above (served by Japanese server).

Visited December 2017