We went to this restaurant with excitement last night as there had been so many positive things said about this place. It turned out that people weren’t critical enough and it wouldn’t help this place to move forward and it would be lucky if they wouldn’t move backwards.
Their manager didn’t bother and care about your customers’ dining experience and food quality at all, even though you complained, complained and complained to their two staff members. My friend said I should only gave one star to this place, but I would still give two stars as there were dishes which should still had merits in them.
The overall experience was completely ruined after having two raw oysters on our sushi platter with my friend. The oysters were not fresh at all and tasted fishy, bitter and even slightly stinky. By the time we noticed, it was too late to spit them out. I was then concerned for last night what if I got food poisoning. It was just intolerable to have stale oysters on a sushi platter that was worth 36 dollars at such a premium place, and the price we paid were enough to buy good 1.5 dozens of oysters on the market.
The Aburi sushi was also a shock as how a Japanese restaurant could possibly overcooked rice or just added too much water into the rice during cooking. As a result, the rice grains in the sushi were glued together and were quite chewy and the texture were close to glutinous rice ball without good acidity in it. The rice grains in the sushi should have been just stuck together but still be distinguishable as individual grains and you can feel the little bounce between your teeth when you chew through the rice. Btw, they also burnt the rice in the aburi sushi (see photo for the black rice grains).
I did enjoy the other components on the sushi platter (salmon, salmon belly, yellow fin tuna and scallops), although their varieties were less than Wasai in Chinatown. Their kingfish cheek was also delicious and full of umami and the meat was just tender and soaked in the delicious sweet soy sauce. Beef tataki (tenderloin) was definitely a star as the meat was tender infused with earthy (and grassy) aromas and tastes. The pickled onions in Beef tataki were impressively prepared as it smoothed out the pungency of red onions but it somehow helped to balance out the richness of a beef dish and made the dish more palatable. Their chawanmushi was such a classic Japanese dish that you could taste the egg, mirin, dashi and seafood - complex flavors in one tiny pot. Tempura (veggies and prawns) was nothing special but also nothing wrong with it.
I will still come back to this restaurant to try their other dishes but definitely not their sushi and oysters in particular. This place does have some interesting elements (e.g.: homestyle Japanese dishes, contemporary Japanese dishes) that will bring me back. I probably will be able to have a full review of their dishes at some point in the future. See less
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