Different menu prices on the English menu?

23 comments

1. I went to karaoke once, at a big place in Shibuya, only to have a special menu given to me which had higher prices on it. It was literally titled ‘Foreigner Menu’ or something like that. Even the receipt had this written on it.

2. Happened once in Shibuya in some izakaya. The English menu had higher prices (not double though). So after they handed us the English menu we asked for the Japanese one…

3. I saw this exact same short. I can actually believe that something like this does exist in Japan but the way it was told in the short seemed really made up.

   Like the waitress giving them both menus even though they know of the scam. Or that the price was not just slightly higher but double and no one ever noticed.

4. I know a lot of Japanese yakitori places list the prices per stick but they have a minimum order of three sticks per type unless you get a taster set. When I first heard about this story I thought maybe they listed the price for the minimum order of two or three sticks instead of dealing with the confusion of having to explain how it works.

5. It’s Shibuya. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
   I once went out to a Shibuya izakaya with a group of foreigners and one Japanese person, and our bill came to be way higher than they said it would be. Our Japanese friend went to the register to call them out on their shit and they quickly changed the bill back to what it should have been. Just dodgy pricks trying to prey on people who don’t know any better.

6. Idk remember exactly what route it was for, but when I was googling flights from Japan to XYZ in English, the price was MUCH higher, closer to double, that when I searched in Japanese

7. I highly doubt that. There are so many foreigners who speak and understand Japanese fluently. Plus, everyone is on social media, so it would be really risky to have a separate menu and prices and expect them to pay more.

   I think the Japanese menu doesn’t include tax, while the English one includes it. Typically, they ask their guests to order a minimum of 2 sets of yakitori, and the price on the Japanese menu is for just one yakitori set, whereas the price on the English menu is for two sets.

8. Curious, to anyone who wants to chime in, what happens if you refuse to leave when they say no gaijin? Can they legally turn you away based on race? (Obviously there’s cases where it’s not easy/possible to serve someone due to language difficulties, but what if there’s no language issues?)

9. Only in Thailand

10. Went to a sake tasting event recently, it was 3000 yen all you can drink from 150 types of sake. The English website had a different price at 5000 yen, but it came with some additional goodies (though seemingly nothing worth an extra 2000).

11. An ex-girlfriend of mine worked in a seafood restaurant in Hakodate in high school.
    She toke me they had a significantly higher priced menu they pulled out when Russians came in.

12. It happened to me once that I saw it but I could also see that the English menu was VERY outdated. As in the items were different and the physical menu was more “damaged” than the Japanese.
    So I think it was just a case of not updating their English menu as I ordered from the English and paid the price on the Japanese one.

13. It’s frowned upon sure but with tourism is explodagain I’m not very surprised. These ‘practice’ are common outside Japan in tourists areas as well btw

14. They probably had to pay some agency a lot of money to translate the menu and they are just passing on that extra expense to the foreign customers /s

15. TAX 👇

16. I have been to places where the English menu was outdated, or lacking the “good deals” like seasonal or daily items and certain otoku sets, but I have not seen different prices for the exact same item.

17. Sometimes the English menu isn‘t updated and still shows the old prices, and other times it‘s just racism. It‘s definitely not a troll because it happened to me several times.

18. I’ve never seen it. The only thing I’ve seen is a smaller English menu.

19. I think I also saw the video you mentioned.

    I’m pretty sure that having two menus with different prices would be very very rare in Japan. I got a feeling that person was just telling that story to make an interesting topic for a Youtube short.

    If anything, there is sometimes confusion as English menus are rarely updated and may show old and cheaper prices.

20. I heard of places in Hawaii which have local, tourist and Japanese priced menus with expensive dishes like lobster available as specials only on the Japanese menu.

    It happens the world over so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone did it in Japan and Shibuya the most likely place.

21. VTuber trash should be charged punitively high prices

22. I remember a LONG time ago (at least ten years ago) going to piss alley in Shinjuku and one of the shops had separate English and Japanese menus. The Japanese menu included a table charge and otoshi; the English menu had no table charge and no otoshi. When I started speaking Japanese the guy asked me which I’d prefer and explained that a lot of the shops in that area had experienced trouble with foreign customers who would get violent and aggressive when asked to pay the cover charge, so they had to make foreign-friendly menus.

    (Now that I think about it, otoshi and cover/table charges feel a lot more rare now, but when I came to Japan it was completely normal…).

    That is my only experience of Foreigner-specific pricing. I wonder if the menu in the YouTube short was also some sort of attempt to minimise friction with non-Japanese speakers (eg. maybe the Japanese menu says something like you have to order a minimum of 2 skewers; but the English menu just has that item as a fixed order for 2 skewers.). Or obviously maybe it could just be a racist/opportunist proprietor trying to price gauge gaijin. But that seems so counter productive that I am inclined, without any other info, to assume incompetence rather than malice.

23. I’ve seen this in Chinese restaurants in Canada. Not in Japan though but I don’t doubt it. Dodgy bastards operate worldwide.