I've visited in the past and it was a much more enjoyable experience than our recent visit. The main draw, in my mind, is the pagoda but the grounds were under construction with a large area fenced off so you couldn't see it closely. This was a major disappointment since that wasn't communicated at all upon entry. Immediately it felt like we overpaid for the experience. There were other areas to enjoy like the zen garden, ponds and tea house but it definitely didn't compare to when all of the items are accessible and the flowers are in bloom. In any offseason or construction time, this is a skip for the price you pay. The plus was that we did enjoy our time at the tea house. It was a nice spot to try some team and Japanese cookies while enjoying one of the ponds. The tea and cookies were very good and the items that others were enjoying looked just as tasty. After big disappointment in the actual gardens, the tea house was a positive end to our visit.
Ticket for adult in weekend is $18 (normal day $15), it's a bit overpriced, given that this park is small and the pagoda area was closed for construction. There is a small Japanese tea café with limited seat and always long line during the weekend, they served convenient shop type of food and drinks, the matcha cheese cakes is awesome, the rest are just average (udon, chicken karaage, miso soup, hojicha, mugicha barley tea) It was a quick 20-30 minutes walk to cover the whole garden, it made us felt calm and peace, however it is not worth the money.
Came with a visitor from Montreal and joined in on the tour given by SF City Guides. Even with all the people present today, the Japanese Tea Garden didn't disappoint! It was beautiful and my visitor thoroughly enjoyed her time there. She took some gorgeous pictures and we both left feeling serene and happy with our visit! This is definitely a great place to take a visitor.