Cocktail Works

Rating: Very good
Meal: Dinner for 2
Price: 10,000 yen
Dishes:  Two drinks, two dishes
Payment: Credit cards accepted
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

Not being fans of bars in general I don't review them much here.  But on our last evening in Karuizawa my wife and I were in the mood for a nicer restaurant, and we had seen this amazing looking bar earlier in the day when we happened by and bought some whiskey and gin from the very nicely supplied store next to it.  When we couldn't get into our first restaurant of choice, we came back to try the food here.

The bar itself is gorgeous, and extremely well stocked with top shelf whiskeys and other liquor.  The food menu is short, but well put together, and they cook everything right there behind the bar somehow.  Everything is expensive, but they aren't pretending it will be anything else, and luckily it was the time for a nice evening out.

My wife had the chicken, I had the beef.  Hers was the better tasting dish overall, but mine wasn't have bad either.  The only pity was it was quite small.  Our drinks were excellent too, with my wife realizing she really quite likes a Martini, which makes sense given her taste for gin (we bought a hops infused gin earlier from the other side of the store).  I had a rare-find Laphroig whiskey, which came on a hand chipped ball of ice.  So good!

The overall price was eye-popping, but definitely a pleasant experience and a real treat.

Ajihei

Rating: Very good
Meal: Dinner for 2
Price: 4000 yen
Dishes:  Several dishes
Payment: Cash only
English Menu: No
Smoking: No?

Karuizawa is a small tourist town, and everything seems to shut down after 6pm.  We were there with a couple of friends after 6 and needed dinner, so we wandered down the "ginza" shopping street looking for anything open.  The only thing we found that time was this chinese restaurant.

Luckily we had a Chinese native speaker with us from the same region as the owners, so they were very kind and made some special order dishes.  My wife and I stuck with some basics, and I had the scrambled eggs with tomatoes dish I knew I could count on.  It was actually quite tasty, as was everything else we had.  Definitely recommended if you are there late and need some grub.

Wan Din Ki

Rating: Not great
Meal: Lunch
Price: 1058 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes: Fried rice
English Menu: No
Smoking: No

My wife and I were in Karuizawa this weekend for a church retreat.  Most of the time we spent eating in our cabins with friends, but on the way out we all stopped at the outlet mall to get some lunch.  The mall is outdoors and sprawling.  We eventually found the food court and split up to get our various dishes.  Not wanting to be a total weirdo, I just reviewed my own meal.

I chose a Chinese restaurant that specialized in fried rice dishes.  I picked one that looked good and waited for my buzzer to go off.  There was a tasty hot oil chilly sauce available that I added liberally.  When I finally tucked into it, I was disappointed to find the rice kernels were hard, almost as if they weren't cooked all the way through.  The overall taste of the dish was very chemical.  Not good at all.

Two other people chose the same place, and we all had the same impression...steer clear of this one.