USJ Universal Studios Japan Restaurants
USJ Restaurants - If they can screw it up, they do.
Mel's Drive In - an embarassment. Once Mel's offered the best and juciest cheeseburgers in Kansai. These days, Mel's offers dry lifeless hamburgers and cheeseburgers that appear to have been grilled at least 20 minutes ago. Barely warm, the cheese melted long ago, and hardened again. Wraping paper becomes a mold and leaves its impression on the cooling cheese. Heaping piles of burgers, fries and onion rings sit idle under heat lamps ready to serve to customers who won't even enter the restaurant for another 15 minutes. This is manufacturing, not restauranting. Clearly no one is measuring taste at Mel's. 1200 yen for a dry warm cheeseburger set with a tiny coke and almost cold french fries/corn pellets? No thank you. Solution? Leave USJ briefly and visit Bubba Gump Shrimp or Mcdonald's.
Louie's N.Y. Pizza Parlor - so sad. Once Louie's had a good four cheese pizza and cream cheese pasta. These days, the menu reflects USJ's apparent desire to Asianize. Dumb. Tokyo Disneyland tried that at first and almost went out of business. Hell, they wrote a book about it. Most of the Italian food is gone, replace with a sort of egg topping pizza. On the other hand, the gelato is still good. Solution? Just stay away, except for the gelato. Consider the italian restaurant on the first floor of City Walk, next to Lawsons. You'll get much better food for a much better price.
Overpriced soft drinks - drink sizes inside the park have shrunk significantly. Solution? Leave the park and visit Lawsons to drink up regularly priced bottles and cans of nearly anything you want.
Good places to eat inside USJ - if they can't screw it up, they don't. Ice cream and beer are still good.
Finnegan's Bar and Grill - sit at the bar and let Jacky pour you a pitcher of beer. A little expensive, but not too bad. Jacky's a good guy. On the other hand, the highly advertised onion blossom seems to never be completely eaten. Too greasy I suspect. But, the beer is cold. Authentic live Irish music is great, if you happen to be there at the right time. Green beer makes any day seem like St. Patricks Day.
City Walk Restaurants
At lunchtime, and on weekends USJ restaurants are too crowded and noisy to enjoy. And with USJ's overpriced, low quality food, it's best to leave the park and visit City Walk.
Bubba Gump Shrimp - one of the very best restaurants in Kansai. I take visiting guests here, even if they aren't going to USJ. High quality delicious food. Extremely friendly and professional staff. FREE REFILLS on soft drinks. Lunch specials for 1000 - 1500 yen that will make you never want to eat lunch inside USJ again. Every receipt come with a coupon for a FREE BUDWEISER or soft drink on your next visit.
Hard Rock Cafe - a little expensive but good quality and quantity. No discounted lunch time specials, though.
Mcdonalds and Starbuck are also nearby.