Hakataya Restaurant Review

Hello. 

I had the pleasure of visiting Edinburgh during the festive holidays. Edinburgh is riddled with Japanese eateries. I came across Hakataya just off Rose street. It is located at 122 Rose Street Lane. It's not hard to miss. It's towards the end nearest The Caledonian Hotel. 

We arrived at 12.30pm for a spot of lunch (3 of us). The restaurant is small, has around 18 covers.

 The decor was simple, and clean! You could see into the kitchen too. 

They give you two menu's on arrival, a lunch menu (pretty hard to read!) and a dinner menu. 

To start, (they came with our mains). Homemade Pork Gyozas. 

Soft gyoza pastry, decent filling, but pretty bland. Not enough ponzu! £5.95

Unakyu. Grilled eel and cucumber maki. Tasty, can't fault it. Cheap too! £5.50.

David's Main! Tonkotsu Ramen. It was nice. But he had to pay for the egg. 75p. Any other toppings such as menma (bamboo) you had to pay for! Bit ridiculous. I forgot the price of this, but the full ramen was £12.95. Not including egg..etc! 

I had the Hell ramen. Whatever that means. It was tasty and spicy but it reminded me of the packet ramen! Especially the spicy broth. For a full ramen it's £14.50. It's only chashu pork, so not sure why they are charging so much! Especially with the lack of toppings. 

My friend had the chicken katsu bento box. He enjoyed it. 

The food is pretty decent here, and was very filling. It's expensive for some things but not others. 

The waitress was great, we dined on the 22nd December. She was very polite. She even offered my friend cutlery because he was struggling with the chopsticks. 

The only problem I had was with the chef. He was on the phone with someone, and was speaking very loudly in Cantonese. The restaurant is small so I could hear every word. 

2 Kirin, 1 green tea, 1 small coke, pork gyoza, unakyu, 2 ramen and a bento box came to just over £50! 

4/5 hearts :)

'till next time