Chugokuryori Tori

I had dinner here and all the dishes were delicious. Very relaxing atmosphere and service was fantastic! I will come back again.

Visited April 2017

we were looking for Chinese restaurant in Karuizawa with a nice atmosphere for a birthday celebration dinner, and since we were interested to do a little shopping at the nearby outlet mall this seemed a good choice. It turned out to be an ok choice. Let’s start with the negatives. Service was about ...as close to bad as you are likely to find in Japan, something that is hard to excuse in a restaurant which charges an automatic 10% service charge. We spent a lot of time trying to flag down a waiter just to get in an order for drinks and appetizers, and when we finally caught one, he looked so stressed out as we vacillated between two possible entrees that we had to let him go. This was a weeknight with the restaurant 20% full or less, so it’s hard to understand why the staff would be so hard-pressed. I had hoped to order some nice shorompo (soup dumplings) I had seen pictured online, but they were not on the menu and not available. We ordered the shrimp gyoza and pork shumai instead; the first was good, the second not that exciting. We managed to get in an entree order after ten minutes spent flagging down another two waiters. Noodle soup with pork and bamboo shoots had good noodles and pork, but we quickly tired of the gravy-like soup. Shrimp with vegetables was pretty good, with fresh baby corn and crunchy snap peas. I should probably confess that we usually find Cantonese food a little bland, and this was no exception. All in all, though, we were satisfied. They did make an effort to clean a table by the window so we could have a view of the nice lotus pond. There’s a frequent shuttle bus service that will take you around the large and scenic Prince complex. But as this is a luxury restaurant in one of Karuizawa’s top hotels, it would have been nice to come away a little more than just satisfied.

Visited July 2017