the purpose of this post is to crowdsource documenting how to properly book dinner/lunch at [Kichi Kichi Omurice](https://goo.gl/maps/eWrGLZM7FHpRaPhWA), the popular Omurice restaurant in Kyoto.
for context, reservations open on a rolling weekly basis every Sunday at 11AM Japan time, up to 4 weeks out. there’s also a legend that explains the ‘X’ on the calendar means the date is fully booked, and ‘—’ means that the date is outside of the reservation period.
i just attempted to make a reservation online using their website, which has some additional instructions around reservations, and a button to take you to the calendar which you can see [here](http://dongree.xsrv.jp/kichikichi/reserve/notes-on-reservation/).
now sad to say i was not able to successfully book a reservation in the latest release of calendar availability for the week leading up to Christmas. more concerning though, is that despite the instructions that are provided the booking process is not clear or as simple as you might think. i thought i’d be able to use the calendar on the website, select the date i wanted right after availability opened up, select a time slot, and boom, but it seems the calendar on the website is actually not intractable at all. this wont be apparent as i’m posting this since all the eligible time slots are taken, but maybe someone else could share a similar booking experience in the comments to back me up.
i say all this to ask, has anybody been able to book at this restaurant recently, and if so what was your booking experience like?
did you have to call in? e-mail?
they did list contact info on the instruction page, but unfortunately i can’t make long distance calls outside of North America and email would be entirely too slow. also it seems the listed contacts are more-so for cancelations, changes, and/or confirmations.
thanks in advance for any/all responses.
5 comments
Sorry to hear you couldn’t get a reservation. I read the shop is small so only a limited amount of seats are available. I actually booked my reservation for the second weekend in December 2 weeks ago when the dates opened right on the dot they opened. I lucked out cause the time zone difference didn’t effect me Sunday 11 AM Japan vs the Saturday 8PM here. I did mine via email. Got the confirmation right away. I had no issues really. I will say the interface did confuse me with the lunch/dinner calendars.
Interesting, as a 30+ year resident of Tokyo, I made a mission during the pandemic closure of the border to eat at restaurants around Japan that were popular with tourists, since the crowds had disappeared.
Overall I was quite unimpressed. The food at various restaurants I went to was good, but I couldn’t understand why there was such a clamor to go to them when they were several other restaurants that had equally good or much better versions of the same dishes. I’m certainly glad I didn’t have to wait hours in line at certain restaurants, just walking in, or stressing about getting a reservation.
Of course it’s difficult as a tourist to know the quality of restaurants, but I would say to choose what type of food you want to eat and don’t stress about going to a specific restaurant, because there will be many others that serve the same dish equally well in Japan
If you’re unable to book by the time you leave. You can always try and secure a spot by walk in. I randomly walked past the shop in 2019 30 min before it opened and I was able to put my name down for reservations. You wanna be the first 10 or so to secure a spot.
Great place, but sad that a certain media outlet made it so hyped.
I had the chance to eat there twice before that happened and was able to just walk in. It was empty both times besides my group.
@op I just reserved today at 6 pm pst (which is 11 am jst), had to refresh for 5-10 mins before reservations opened so it’s just a matter of the site being slow to update when the window drops (and by 6:15 all spots were gone)