Reviews for Arigato Travel / Arigato Japan Food Tours

Uji Matcha Tour with Yukiko

We did the Uji Matcha tour with Yukiko and it was an amazing, fun, and informative experience! Yukiko was knowledgeable, kind and fun and we learned all about Uji’s culture and how matcha is made. Would highly recommend this tour and Yukiko to anyone traveling to Japan who is a green tea lover!

Product: Arigato Japan Food Tours

Matcha Magic in Uji!

We did the Kyoto Uji Half Day Matcha Green Tea Tour and it was a wonderful experience! Yukiko was a great tour guide - knowledgeable and friendly. We would recommend this tour to anyone who loves green tea and wants to learn more about it!

Product: Arigato Japan Food Tours

Sake!!

Aleef was great very fun tour!!!

Product: Sake Town Tour in Saijo Hiroshima

On the Karahori Retro Osaka Day Tour I had a very enjoyable tour with Miyuki who tailored our time to take in my particular interests in food & history. She was knowledgeable not just on the locality but on Japan in general. I recommend Miyuki & the tour which highlighted everyday life & foods in Japan.

Product: Arigato Travel / Arigato Japan Food Tours

My wife and I recently took a trip to Japan and did four different tours with Arigato, all of which were exceptional. In Tokyo, we did the Old Town Yanaka food tour with Joshua and the Akihabara Adventure with Wesley. In Kyoto we did the Gion/Kaiseki food tour with Tak (Takashi) and the Nishiki Market food tour with Yoshiko. All four guides were friendly, knowledgable, and great to spend the 3 hours and various meals with! The tours took us to parts of Tokyo and Kyoto that we likely wouldn't have gone to otherwise, and we're so glad they did. Can't recommend Joshua, Wesley, Tak, and Yoshiko enough!

Product: Arigato Travel / Arigato Japan Food Tours

Fun time in Osaka. Tried some real Japanese food. Octopus balls, fish flakes, etc. but the deep fried cheese on a stick was a grilled cheese!!! Amazing. Our guide Matt was a sweet fun guy. Highly recommend

Product: Arigato Travel / Arigato Japan Food Tours

Disappointing Tour

We were a group of 6 visiting Tokyo for the first time and were really looking forward to this tour as our introduction to Shinjuku’s food scene. At ¥26,400 per person, expectations were high. Unfortunately the experience fell short in a few significant ways. The good: The tour started promisingly. Our guide took us through Omoide Yokocho and brought us to a charming little spot that we genuinely loved; exactly what we were hoping for from the entire tour. Intimate, pre-arranged, and authentically Tokyo. He also had some interesting anecdotes along the way that we enjoyed. Where it went wrong: From the second stop onward, things declined noticeably. He took us to a ramen spot in an underground mall where there was clearly no reservation. We waited over 15 minutes and couldn’t sit together as a group. For a pre-booked tour at this price point, we expected every stop to know we were coming, the way the first spot did. Every other food tour we’ve done in cities around the world operates this way. Instead this felt improvised. We also want to flag the pescatarian issue specifically. One member of our group is pescatarian - something we disclosed months in advance when booking and were assured was no problem. Yet at this stop our guide told us this wasn’t his usual spot, but he brought us here specifically because they had a vegan ramen option for our pescatarian guest. We appreciated the thought, but we had no trouble finding excellent ramen spots with both meat and non-meat options throughout Tokyo on our own. This felt like something that should have been planned long before the tour date. The food progression: A food tour should feel like a curated journey of small bites and shareables across multiple spots. After the first stop, the portions became full meals: a complete ramen for each person, followed by a full spread at an izakaya. By the end we were uncomfortably full rather than pleasantly satisfied. It’s not about being fed too much - it’s that the pacing and structure made no sense for a food tour format. The guiding itself: Our guide meant well and was clearly a kind person, but he didn’t take command of the group the way a good tour guide should. He frequently asked us what we wanted to do next - which is the last thing you want to hear from someone you’ve hired to show you around. At Golden Gai he had no plan, wandering between bars trying to find one that might take a group of 6 and soliciting our opinions along the way. We didn’t need a tour guide for that - we needed someone with a plan. By the 3.5 hour mark we were exhausted, overly full, and honestly a little bored. We made the decision to call it a night before the Golden Gai bar portion and took a cab back to our hotel. We don’t doubt the tour was designed with good intentions, and the concept - Omoide Yokocho, Kabukicho, Golden Gai - is genuinely a great one. But the execution on this particular evening was poor. For nearly $180 per person we expected a seamlessly guided, pre-arranged experience from start to finish. We got about 20 minutes of that. We would not recommend this tour in its current form.

Product: Shinjuku Golden Gai Food Tour

Had a fantastic food tour with Ryan - great little food stops, some interesting facts about history and culture, and we were able to understand the area, which will help us in our next few days here. 100% worth it. Ryan was a fantastic host, and with just 3 people on the tour, it was a personal, fun and friendly experience. Catered for vegetarian needs.

Product: Arigato Travel / Arigato Japan Food Tours

Had an incredible food tour with Sebastian. We tried such a huge variety of food, and all of it was incredible. I'd highly recommend!

Product: Arigato Travel / Arigato Japan Food Tours

We did the Golden Gai/Shinjuku food tour, and it was hands-down one of the best experiences we had in Japan! Our guide Igor was really fun, laid-back, and super knowledgeable. We walked through Shinjuku trying yakitori at Izakayas, stopped for ramen and sashimi at tiny cozy spots, and ended the tour with drinks in Golden Gai, all while getting honestly fun and interesting information about Japans history, cultural norms, exposure to city life and pachinko, and helpful tips for navigating and staying in the city. The tour was also a very small group (only two other people!) so it felt intimate and relaxed, and we were actually sad to leave our group at the end of the tour. I cannot recommend this tour enough, we absolutely loved our time on it, and wish we could have hung out with Igor longer, he was such a cool guide! A huge thank you to Igor and for the team behind this, it was so fun!

Product: Arigato Travel / Arigato Japan Food Tours

We had a great time with Igor! He was really friendly and knew a lot about the area we toured. At plenty on the tour, and got skewers, sashimi, and ramen as well as drinks along the way. Highly recommend going with Igor if you can!

Product: Arigato Travel / Arigato Japan Food Tours

We had a wonderful experience with Lee as our guide. He took us to out of the way favorites that we could not have found ourselves, and we tasted several unique, yet delicious Japanese foods. Well done!

Product: Arigato Travel / Arigato Japan Food Tours

Breakfast Fishmarket Tour - The best!

The Tsukiji Breakfast Tour with Shigaki was an extraordinary experience in every sense and in a good way: raw and for us exotic fish for breakfast, after we wandered the market and could choose what we wanted to try, but also got recommendations. And it was all really delicious and paired with Sake. The market itself is an experience, but Shigaki made it special with his knowledge and enthusiasm for the local food and drinks. Also, at the meeting point, Turret Coffee, we had the best coffee we had in all of Tokyo!

Product: Arigato Japan Food Tours

Toffe gids voor culinair Ginza (Tokio)

We hadden het genoegen om half Japanse-half Braziliaanse Ully10 als gids te mogen hebben. Ze gaf culinaire en culturele tips en deed dat met veel enthousiasme en authenticiteit. Vraag naar Ully als je deze tour door Ginza wil doen.

Product: Tokyo Allstar Food Tour

Fun and Delicious

Did Shimbashi food tour with Joe. Really fun and delicious food. Joe was a terrific guide

Product: Flavors of Japan Food Tour in Tokyo

We had a really fun evening sampling various traditional Japanese cuisine ,visited a knife shop and played Cork shooting in a games arcade .Our guide Tomo was good fun and very knowledgeable and helpful .We highly recommend this food tour .It was the perfect last night to our wonderful tour of Japan .

Product: Arigato Travel / Arigato Japan Food Tours

So many yummy bites and drinks! Thanks Mei/Melissa for the terrific tour

Product: Arigato Travel / Arigato Japan Food Tours

Wonderful, fun tour!

We had a wonderful tour with Lee as our guide. He took us to some of his favorite out of the way places, where we tasted several unique, yet delicious Japanese foods.

Product: Osaka Shinsekai Evening Food Tour

The Arigato food tour of Shibuya was amazing! Our guide Yasmine was charming and very knowledgeable, and we went to five restaurants with delicious food, including a hole-in-the-wall ramen place with the most umami-laden broth. Also sushi, two izakaya, dessert - all terrific. Thank you, Arigato and Yasmine!

Product: Arigato Travel / Arigato Japan Food Tours

Our guide Miyuki (Miki) met us promptly at the agreed location and time. Miki was very knowledgeable about the history of the Dotonbori area in Osaka and proud to be showing us part of her local experience. The food tour was great as well as Miki's enthusiasm in showing us Osaka's wealth of delights. She was open to many questions and we loved her natural flair to connect with people. We would thoroughly recommend this tour with Miki

Product: Arigato Travel / Arigato Japan Food Tours