A Step-by-Step Guide to Reserving a Table (With Halal Kobe Beef!) and Accessing English Menus in Restaurants

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Frequently Asked Questions; How To Place a Reservation? Do You Have an English Menu?

Placing a reservation in a restaurant before visiting is one of the usual manners in Japan. Some also accept walk-in dining, but you’ll be highly advised to reserve a table to stick to your travel schedule.

Also, seeing a restaurant with an English menu is way more common. Some are always available at the table, while others are online.

Today we talk to Issho, a halal restaurant in Ueno, Tokyo is frequently dealing with such questions.

Reserving a Table

Especially if you are planning to visit for dinner, it might be very difficult to find a restaurant to dine in if you do not place a reservation in advance. It is because people are overflowing at night, whether it is after work or else, and limited seating in the restaurant.

In the case of Issho, they recommend placing a reservation online through their booking site for a smoother process. Even though the site is only available in Japanese, you can use the Google Translation service on your browser. In addition, you will need to pay more attention to the reservation period if you are willing to experience a special menu which will be explained in the “Reserving Halal Kobe Beef” section below.

Furthermore, some halal restaurants also accept reservations through their official homepage or social media accounts.

If you speak Japanese, you can make a call to check. But if you don’t, the online reservation is a convenient option since the restaurant may doesn’t have full-time English-speaking staff.

Reserving Halal Kobe Beef

Considering it as a special meal, Kobe beef is usually not available anytime at the restaurant, instead, the restaurant has to order from the trader or wholesaler before they can serve the meat to you. That’s why most restaurants ask for reservations in advance for some time so that they can be well-prepared.

Issho is the only halal restaurant in Tokyo that serves halal Kobe beef with the option of sirloin and rib roast. The Kobe beef set is available without reservation (walk-in) while we recommend placing a reservation in advance to secure your seat. Reservation can be made via phone call 03-5830-3785. (Japanese and easy English) or Issho’s Instagram direct message.

Find the English Menu

With many international tourists visiting Japan, the English menu has been a very important tool to attract foreign customers to the restaurant. However, restaurants with a very wide variety of menus – like they have menus that come in a lot of pages – encounter an issue in preparing printed versions of English menus.

In the case of the Issho restaurant, they use QR codes so that those who need English menus can scan the code to see the menus, in addition to printed-out English menus.