What do you think of the quality of waiters in Japanese restaurants?

Excellent, on the whole. From my experience, Japanese and American waiters are friendly, efficient & knowledgeable. Other countries and it tends to be a mixed bag, more than often.

The best thing about waiters here in Japan is, they aren't snooty - and the service provided is on the ball.

Of course, I'm talking about standard restaurants here, I wouldn't really know about high-end places.

Yeah, it's definitely solid, right down from McDonalds all the way up to the high end places. With no tipping at that. Japanese restaurants are definitely among the top, if not the top in the world.

Generally Japanese waiters are pretty good, but unfortunately far too often I have a waiter who has forgotten my order, lost my dish, or just flat out refused to come to my table and take my order. Generally I don't think this is the waiter's fault so much as the manager's, but the result is still the same.

At a Tokyo restaurant during the bubble years we watched wait staff janken with the loser stuck waiting on us, but that was a one-off. Since then I've had some who've held their breath while seating, taking orders and serving, but all in I say the quality of wait staff is very high.

Usually very polite and give excellent service.

I agree with Reckless. It's all great until you have a foo allergy. The waiters often have absolutely no clue as to what their customers are ingesting, and the "chefs" are often in the same boat. The chef at the restaurant at my own job doesn't even know where miso is used and tried to have a heated debate with me until I blew him off and told him to just read the labels!

I cannot believe Japan doesn't have huge problems with people dying of allergies in restaurants. The lack of understanding of allergies is appalling in Japan. If I had an anaphylactic allergy, I'd escape this place ASAP

RecklessSep. 30 05:44 pm JSTNot many complaints. Sometimes I ask for example "does this dish have shrimp in it?", because I have a food allergy, and usually they do not know the answer and have to take a few minutes to find out.

I agree with this; although the service is top-notch, any out of the box request would often be met with blank stare.

It’s one of the best. And they don’t come to your table every 15 minutes like in the US to ask “how is your food”, especially when you’re trying to have a conversation.

It depends on what kind of restaurants you visit, I think. Generally speaking, the cheaper restaurant you go, the lower hospitality you will be served.

It’s one of the best. And they don’t come to your table every 15 minutes like in the US to ask “how is your food”

Yes. I’ve also noticed this very irritating form of ‘hospitality’ creeping into restaurants in the UK.

Japan is very systematic in all kind of services and restaurants are on the top of them, it's going to be in the level of measured period to those be ranked in stars from 1 to 5, like the hotels. Another thing in Japan is about the kuchikomi's messages, to describe ranking up or down, some opinions are very rigid supporting the rival one, many comparisons. Services to be better it's agreable but tendencies of Japanese services to be too systematic let the waiters/ staffs to be robotic speaking or conducts. (maybe better to have a perfect robot there). In Fukuoka the city I live you can see a lot of Yatais ( food stands or stalls) the food isn't anything special but the atmosphere the best one in the world, not able to be ranked with restaurants but their services aren't bad and they have very friendly approaches to anyone, even foreigners. I recommend you to come to Fukuoka if you have any kuchikomi opinions.

The US chain that merged with a Japanese chain was my only disappointment for all the times I've dined out. The burger I ordered looked nothing like the one displayed. More like someone had sat on it first.

I didn't go all D-FENS or anything like that. It was just a surprise and an exception to the rule of decent grub, no matter what the venue.

It’s one of the best. And they don’t come to your table every 15 minutes like in the US to ask “how is your food”, especially when you’re trying to have a conversation.

Yes, that is really annoying and unnecessary. I also dislike waiters who act as if you are their new best friend, or waiters that are over familiar. Wagamama, I mean you.

Agree with the above. One tip: when you have food allergies, you might want to try a big-name hotel restaurant. They don't want to have their name appear in any angry twitter rant so they train their staff more detailed/have a list with allergen ingredients for every dish out of the kitchen.

Robots mostly, who have memorised the manual. Ask them anything outside this and they would be lost.

I didn't go all D-FENS

Awesome.