Kira Honten

When you're in Saga, you have to eat Saga beef. My first meal was at this place. They were so friendly, seeing I was alone, they gave me a private room. The meat was so tender, the atmosphere was great, and it was delicious.

Dined in and ordered the 9800yen Saga beef shabu shabu set for two. Total 19600 + 400 yen for orange juice. Cannot help but compare this to Kisoji in Tokyo/Kanto that we sometimes visit. Personally, I would say Kisoji is significantly better in all dimensions. Food quality, service and ambience. The only thing that is good here in my opinion is that you can choose Saga beef which we did and it does taste good. (Kisoji beef also taste great, btw) Other than that, the service is just okay. We had to clear our soup of scum ourselves whereas Kisoji would do it for us. The atmosphere is just like a standard restaurant. The general food quality is also not great (except the beef). Disappointed with the sesame sauce too. Think it is just so so overall at least for Shabu Shabu. Might come back for YakiShabu as wife loves the Saga Beef.

The staff there is very nice and helpful to make booking for me, although I am not Japanese. Teppanyaki and Saga beef course are the best of the best I have ever had in Japan! Chef is super skillful and cooked the beef in a very nice way! I will definitely recommend all people to come for Teppanyaki in this restaurant!

Shabu shabu with saga beef! We enjoyed our dinner at Kira Honten, which is known for its high quality beef from Saga. The dinner set came with appetizers, salad, main (shabu shabu with beef & veggies) as well as dessert. Overall, I think this is good value for money and we were satisfied with the service.

Excellent Saga beef shabu shabu for under 10,000yen. The set comes with an appetizer plate, 4 big slices of beef, mixed vegetables, rice, miso soup, dessert and a drink of choice. Note that there is a minimum of 2 person portion order required for shabu shabu. Service is slightly lacking compared to other shabu shabu places of similar level (eg other places will at least cook the meat for you, clear out the scum, cook the vegetables, etc) There is free parking available right outside the restaurant.

My friends and I are coming from Malaysia, and after a long day of driving, we were originally planning to visit somewhere nearby for dinner but it was closed, so we randomly found this place and just decided to dine here on a whim. Since we walked in without reservation and it was dinner time, we waited in the waiting room for about 20 minutes. The waiting room offered TV shows and books, all in Japanese, though. The service was wonderful, I had a lot of questions regarding the ingredients and the staff patiently answered and clarified my doubts, and managed to learn a lot! Atmosphere-wise, it does give out a feeling that it's expensive (and it is). It's a Michelin-starred restaurant, after all. And we only found out afterwards. The beef was delicious, we didn't actually manage to finish the vegetables offered, but there were tea refills as well as rice refills upon request so we're super full with happy tummies. The time we visited Saga was beautiful autumn so we also had an amazing time. Overall it's been a pleasant experience. Though if you're here solely to compare prices then it is on the higher end.

A nice and warm place for enjoying saga beef under snowy weather Restaurants have many set meal for different part of beef or saga beef around 2000-5000 yen per set with soup,salad, rice and dessert Highly recommended saga beef set or single item saga beef (4000yen per 100g) We have ordered saga beef and another beef set. The taste of the saga beef was outstanding and absolutely delicious which huge different with other beef. Saga beef taste even mask the taste of the sauces and anything else

Five star Saga beef! The beef is perfect, melt in your mouth wagyu beef, even the cheaper one. We've tried all price points/levels and impressed in all of them... even the cheapest one here is better than the expensive beef at home! Lunch meal sets have best value, come with salad, miso, rice, dessert and coffee or tea. Highly recommended. Service is good. There are English menu, hooray! And the servers can speak usable English. A lot of parking spaces on premise.

FYI, NO photography allowed in Teppanyaki area (with SIGNS displayed, not sure about the rest of the entire place) I have been to Kira Hakata 3 times and Kira Ginza once in the past, I would say Kira Honten is the BEST among all three based on food freshness, quality, ambiance and most important: service. I went there for solo teppanyaki dinner two nights in a row. There is a separated waiting room for teppanyaki customers. Once my seat was available, the server took me to teppanyaki area. This hall is very open but quiet filling with light scent from fresh lilly. The teppanyaki chef was very skillful cutting and preparing my food, NO onion volcano or knife throwing/chopping show (which showed this is a real high end teppanyaki place). Dishwares are all premium pottery lines from Arita-yaki. Beautiful!! Most produces are from Saga with a few exceptions from Kyushu. Everything was very delicious including desserts & coffee (what a surprise!) Service is really top notch! This is the best dining experience compared with other worldwide Michelin star restaurants i have been to in the past. Actually i didn't know this place got any star until now. My water glass was always full, and the server always refilled my sake glass. He speaks good english and we had no communication issue at all. I can tell he was little nervous serving me the first night (fyi, single woman dining alone in high end restaurants is rare in Japan) but he was very comfortable the second night. He offered recommendations on teppanyaki course and cut of beef to make sure i got a chance to sample both great cut they offer. We ever chatted a little about my dining and travel experience in the rest of Japan. The whole experience made my solo Japan trip very memorable and forget the rude treatment from other Japanese business in Tokyo! I definitely must go to this place again when i visit Saga!