Izakaya Daikichi     居酒屋大吉  

We had a real craving for sushi, and our first two choices were packed. We stopped here purely randomly, and it was atrocious. I mean, really.

The service put me in an utterly foul mood. Our order was simple: two of the A2 sushi sets. I said the order, the server repeated it back to me, and then I saw him write it down, just like that: A2 x 2. Not all that long later, a different server brings over two sashimi sets. That's par for the course in HK, they're just terrible at getting your order right here.

But what happened next literally offended me, to the point that I almost demanded an apology. I told the server who brought the incorrect orders that this was not the food we ordered. She didn't then say "sorry" and go check on her mistake. She gave us a total death stare, followed by this flabbergasted look that said "What do you want me to do about it?" and then stood there holding the dishes we didn't order in our faces for 30 seconds. I thought she might never leave. I had to ask her to go check on the order. I shouldn't have to ask you to do your job. Predictably, the two sashimi sets were for a different table, which I then saw her take them to. And she did not come back and apologize, which any decent human being who behaved so abominably would have done.

Then the food we did order arrived. I will describe it in great detail, as per OpenRice's requirement that each review contain "solid description of the food and the overall dining experience."

The first course was a miso soup. It was more involved than miso often is (often it's just broth and tofu and seaweed). This had some seafood in it, and a strong seafood flavor. It wasn't terrible, but it was rather fishy-tasting. B

Tuna sushi. The tuna was rather flavorless and had no taste. It's texture was 'grainy' if that makes any sense, and a little between mushy and creamy in texture. C-

Yellow fish: The issue was that it had brown, discolored spots on it, like it had been bruised or left out in the air for too long. It wasn't like rotten fish or anything, like I said it was a very surface-brownness, and probably just air exposure. I have to apologize for not having photographic evidence of this, I doubt the contrast on a normal camera could have caught it. You can take my word for it or not, OpenRice is not in any sense responsible for the contents of my comments. F

Sea urchin: The first thing I should say is that the seaweed wrapper on the urchin was on the thicker side for sushi wraps and I found somewhat difficult to manage. Urchin is somewhat unappetizing by its very nature. I cannot comment on its particular quality, as I do not often order this. It should be pointed out that one of the problems with the sushi set is that it's not entirely friendly to everyone's palate.

Raw shrimp: There was a raw shrimp sushi roll, which consisted of two small shrimps. Normally I've had a flayed piece of shrimp that was somewhat drier and firmer. These were 'wet' and a little squishier (?). It's hard to describe.

The California roll. How can you mess this up? I know, how about using avocado so overripe that it was literally a grey mush. Again, I don't have any photographic evidence, so this is the sole testimony and opinion of me, and not OpenRice, but the avocado was overripe and grey (according to me). It's not really the sort of thing one could have photographed anyway. I couldn't really tell that it was avocado until after I took a bite: the mushiness was in the texture. The rest of the ingredients in the roll were not spectacular, and it was ruined by the mushy *texture*. F

My recommendation: Don't go here. Under any circumstance. Get Park'n'Shop sushi if need be. Just not here. F--

very poor arrangement! very narrow space! no matter how many you order, they just serve you the portion they limited for the table.

Not recommended to go!

After dining, it is a so common restaurant.

The fish and sushi is good and the beef and lumb is good. The service is good and fast, service is also polite. I shall come again.

Wow. Just wow.

First off, If you are thinking about visiting this restaurant because of its positive rating. Don't.
Just dont bother. It is very misleading. What should have been a nice Japanese culinary experience became a nightmare of epic proportions.

I had high hopes for this restaurant, I really did. I tried to keep an open mind throughout the whole ordeal but seriously this is just way too much.

I reserved a seat for two at 8:15, upon exiting the lift (it's on the sixth floor) there was literally no space to even walk out. The entire lift lobby and restaurant foyer was cramped full of waiting people. There was no attempt made to inform waiting customers of the busy situation or to weed out the people who had reserved seats; it very much reminded me of my old school lunch queue. After pushing to the front and telling the only staff that we had made a reservation, we were then told to wait 2 minutes which rapidly turned into 20 before we finally got a table.

Now begins the real fun. They go by a pen written order system, you fill out the slips and hand it to the waiter, you get the food.

We filled out an order of 9 different items, 4 of which actually arrived and in totally incorrect quantities of what we ordered. What is worse is that our food arrived incomplete; sushi without soy sauce sashimi without wasabi, it was as if they wanted to just say. No. we don't really mind if you just shovel it all down (it's all going to the same place anyway right?)

The sushi itself was very mediocre, salmon sashimi cut into pieces so small you get larger portions at Genki for less.

I would have to say the two worst things about our visit were this; our drinks arrived at the very end of the meal, much after everyone else around us (it was hot outside that day)
and the second? The staff despite being asked numerous times for the missing items on the list would pretend to acknowledge our order, then nothing would get done. (this happened four or five times).

I just wanted to be out of there.
This was around $400 between the two of us btw, and for that amount of money we could have had excellent korean food instead of "all you can eat" Japanese (pffff)

I really wanted to like you Izakaya, but you made it so difficult.

My friend is heading back to the US tomorrow, so we kinda had a farewell dinner with her tonight. She wanted to have Japanesw food, so my boyfriend suggested an buffet dinner where he had 'All you can drink Sake' last time. We went to Wellington Street and realised there were several Japanese Buffer restaurants nearby. We sticked to our original choice and went up the building next to Mannings.

The restaurant were full when we arrived so we waited outside at the lobby. There were lots of Polaroid stickings everywhere on the walls. Most of the polaroid had the phrase 'Happy Birthday' written on them. May be all birthday person can have a free snap there? There are two time slots available for dinner buffet, 6-830pm & 845-11pm at a price of $175 from Monday to Saturaday and $155 during Sunday or public holiday.(Which was rather ridiculous having public holidays cheaper than normal working days).

There were tonnes of choices available from the stacks of order sheets. We ordered most of the food on the sheets and shared them so we could tried lots of different kinds of food.

1) Assorted Sashimi
The sashimi looked really appetizing. We ordered a lot of Sweet Shrimp and Salmon. The Sweet Shrimp was rather small and tasted average. It was not sweet, so I assume it was not that fresh. The Salmon although was cut in large slices, were not fat at all, so it did not have a smooth texture. The Tamago was a flat sweet egg and was not made according to the traditional layering way. The Red Clam was chewy and quite nice. Overall, the sashimi tasted fine, and was at the quality that you could expect to get with this price range.

2) Assorted Tempura + Soft Chicken Bone
Yay, it's Tempura! There were a wide range of tempura to chose from. The Shrimp were in medium size, it was quite tender and fresh. The Octopus Croquettes's texture were solid, like crab cakes, but was not like those octopus mashed potato tempura that I had in Japan. The Sweet Potatoes were nice, but it kind of tasted like Pumpkin. The Pumpkin on the other hand had a strong taste of Pumpkin and were quite nice. The Rice Cake was very chewy and cheesy, It had a strong taste of butter and taste rather bad. In general, the tempura was not deeply fried, so the flakey coating was not that flakey at all. Fortunately it had a slight crispy coating and was not those flappy soft one.

The golden little crisps on the right top hand corner of the picture was the Soft Chicken Bone. they had a very crispy coating, a hot and tender filling. This soft chicken bone was a must try!

3) Bean Curd
The bean curd was average. The bean were quite nice. Yet I had once had this in some traditional Japanese restaurant and there should be some coarse salt on the surface of the bean curd. Well, although I would not expect they would have all the essences, but I would deeply appreciate it if they could put more details on their food.

4) Assorted Sushi
Hmm...I bet you could see from the picture, the sushi was not that fresh at all. A problem was that you couldn't really tell what was what by looking at it. On the bottom left were Wagyu Beef Sushi, then Toro Sush; where on the top left should be Scallop. The Wagyu Beef Shushi was good. It melted on your palate right after you had the whole piece in your mouth. The rice was pretty nice too. It was rather sticky and chewy. The Toro was not fresh and did not taste good. The texture was mesh-like.

5) Wagyu Beef BBQ
Another Wagyu Beef Dish! The restaurant does provide very nice Wagyu dishes, this Wagyu BBQ was one of those. The meat was very tender and soft. It was extremely juicy and was nicely flavoured. The baby tomato was also grilled to give a slightly crispy skin. It was sweet in taste too.

6) Beef Hotpot
In the middle of the meal, we suddenly realized all four of us were beef lovers! So we further ordered two Beef Hotpots. Before having the dish, you have to mix the egg thoroughly in the pot, so the egg yolk could formed several white layer floating on the soup. The hotpot soup base were sweet like Shabu-shabu which was very tasty. There were brown crystal noodles inside the pot which is my favourite and was SO good!

7) All you can Drink
You could literally drink anything in any quantity, whenever you like as long as they are in the menu. Last time they were doing all you can drink Sake, This time they were offering all you can drink beer. But we didn't have any bear. Don't be deceived by the 'Pepsi Coke' on the Drink list, it was literally 'Coka Cola'; the 'Pepsis light' was also in fact 'Coka Cola Light with Lemon'!

Overall, the food quality was just average, and hence so did their tastes. Yet there were dishes that were really good and worth recommending. For example, the Beef Hotpot, the Wagyu Beef BBQ, the Shrimp Tempura and the Sesame Chicken Wing. However when it comes to Japanese cuisine, I would not usually recommend Japanese buffet restaurants as the food quality won't usuallymake me satisfy. I just hate eating food just to fill my stomach.

www.cinnamon4coffee.blogspot.com

on the night before judgement day, three friends and i went here for our 'last supper' before the result came out. we were looking for a place where we could eat as much salmon as we like, so we decided to book a table at this japanese all-you-can-eat at 8:45.

surprisingly, the place was still crowded when we got there-we thought it would be pretty empty by then. we had to wait for 10 mins although we had reserved a table...nevermind. the staff had been trying their best to arrange tables for everyone so we did not mind.....or we could not bother to mind, since we NEED to eat to prepare ourselves for whatever blast on the next day.

we settled on a 4-person table and started ordering right away. they came pretty quickly tho except the plate of sashimi. everything tasted average without much surprise-you get what you expect from a japanese-all-you-can-eat so ima not comment on them one by one.

but something interesting about the sashimi is that no matter now many pieces you have ordered you get almost the same portion, only differing in their thickness. thus theres no real difference between a 50-pieces order and a 30-pieces order.

service is already good considering the number of customers one waiter have to tackle at one time. they are already kind enough not to get mad at customers. plus, try to be kinder to them and they will return your kindness.

the environment and cleanness is not good-the kitchen floor was SUPER messy as if someone had just vomited onto the floor. GROSS.

my conclusion: if you want really good japanese all-you-can-eat at a reasonable price, try those in causeway bay: dont stick to central as there are better alternatives. but if you have to stick to central, and just in case you can stand eating progressively thicker sashimis, this might be the perfect spot for you.

There are many types of sushi, sashimi, tempura to choose.
Sashimi very fresh, especially salmon, sweet Shrimp, and tuna. I lovin it
The tempura of prawn and oyster are very delicious.
Crab porridge is great.
The service is good, from take order to delivery process is very fast and the food is fresh.
And the environment is okay, make me feel comfortable.
To conclude, that is a good restaurant.

What's with the loud J-Pop music at this place ???

The Wife and I had dinner there but decided to have a la carte instead of the buffet. We just wanted to eat and go - there was no way we could enjoy a buffet with the horrible music that was being played.

When we arrived, it was clearly audible that the speakers were straining from the loud volume at which the CD was being played. The music was turned down a notch at our request, but we noticed that it was turned up again later. It was way louder than what background music should be and simply forced diners to raise their own voices when talking.

We had a tempura soba, grilled chicken and egg on rice, stir-fried veggies, and a chicken yakitori. Acceptable quality.

But we won't go back without ear plugs.