AKU Teppanyaki Japanese Restaurant     渥鐵板燒日本料理  

This restaurant came highly recommended by a friend of mine but I have never had a chance to try it out until today as I am no big fan of teppanyaki.

This restaurant was about 50% full when I arrived at about 1pm. Not sure what to make of the situation at first, it became a bit more apparent as it was gradually filled up by people who obviously didn't have to stick with the normal lunch hour.

There were 3 different sets of teppanyaki for lunch, and my friends suggested choosing between the steak+salmon combo or the seafood combo. I didn't even have the chance of studying what the third one consisted of as it was priced at about 100% more than these two.

There was a self-service salad bar. Nothing to get too excited about as there were only about 6 bowls of veggies there including cherry tomatoes, cucumber slices, lettuce, corn, and peas. There were only 2 sauces - one was something akin to the conventional Thousand Island Dressing and the other one is French Vinegrette. Strange to have such veggies and sauces as an appetizer to a japanese meal, I hate to admit.

I settled for the seafood combo. I must say that all the ingredients were very fresh and tasty - one fairly large-sized squid, 2 scallops and a tiger prawn. Prepared to perfection with little seasoning required, that was a good dish, much to my surprise. The fried rice was also nicely done even though it was a little too salty to my liking. I didn't have the chance to try the fried veggies as the waiter has already cleaned out my area and taken away my chopsticks when it arrived. The reason was not difficult to understand. The chef covering our side of the sitting area had to take care of at least 4 other patrons (in addition to the four of us), I guess the timing for attending to everybody's dishes was difficult to keep.

There was no dessert as part of the set menu, only self-service tea or coffee.

It was a fairly acceptable lunch, considering the location, view from the restaurant, the quality of the main course and of course, the price.

It was a booked dinner using a group buying voucher set dinner. No table wait and restaurant was 1/3 full.

Food was great esp the wagyu beef roll was a real surprise, also the seafood tempura set which includes a very nice crab claw

Service was great, dish was cleaned very quickly after we finished every plate, and tea was refilled fairly frequently without any waving to wait. Will definitely consider going again.

I was initially worried about not getting a table at AKU because I didn't call to make a booking. Amazingly, the place was practically empty when we got there for dinner. It made me wonder (and just a little bit worried) that the place might not be good because it wasn't being patronized. I was wrong. This place is amazing!

We had two staff waiting on no one else but us. We didn't have to call for service, they came automatically the second they see you turning your head around. The staff were also very proactive in suggesting what food to take and what sake to order, whether this drink would go well with that food, etc. For the wonderful service alone, this place gets 10-star points from me.

We started dinner with the salmon sashimi. It was thick cut, very fresh and had absolutely no slimy or fishy after taste. Good stuff.

Then they brought in the bottle of sake which they soaked in a semi-tub of hot water to heat it up. Then a server came with a tray of sake cups of all shapes and sizes. We all got to pick which sake cup we want to use. We had to wait about 10-15 minutes for the sake to heat up before they poured us some. Again, 10-star points from me for a different sake-drinking experience.

Then came the mango sushi which was drizzled in some sort of creamy goo with three little blobs of caviar on top. I absolutely loved it!

And then they brought in the assorted BBQ platter. It had chicken wings, mushrooms, grilled eggplant, asparagus wrapped in beef, cod fish, and grilled pork cubes. Absolutely delicious!

While all these was happening, the chef has been frying garlic chips in preparation for the rest of our dinner. After the garlic chips were done, they were set aside and he made us steamed eggs with foie gras and a dollop of black caviar. It was deliciously good! I don't know what kind of egg it was but there was no yolk. There was just egg white, and in the middle of it, a chunk of foie gras (which, you can opt not to have if you don't fancy the stuff - the chef will ask if you want it or not). And the dollop of caviar was what gave it the semi-salty taste. Mmmmm yummy!

Then we had the fish. I liked how the chef would divide whatever it was that was being cooked into equal shares for all of us. We got heaping servings of garlic chips every so often. I loved that the chips stayed crispy throughout dinner.

We also had some steak and mushrooms. I was constantly taking pictures throughout dinner and just before the steak was cooked, the chef gently informed me to get my camera ready. Wooohooo! I loved it! Another 10-star points from me for making me go "woah!".

And lastly, we had the fried rice with beef and bacon. By this time, we were almost full and we had some difficulty finishing the rice. All that meat sure took up a lot of space in our stomachs! But the fried rice was so yummy (we were mixing in the crunchy garlic chips with it) that we just had to finish it all up.

For an awesome dining experience and staff that are more than happy to serve, AKU is the place to be.

I have been to Aku at TST centre and wanted to bring my friends for a teppanyakki lunch for her birthday.. Finally i picked AKU at K11 randomly but turned out it's was a GOOD choice
Ambiance ~
Aku at K11 is much bigger than the one at TST centre, nice-deco, spacious and huge-glasses allow natural light up the restaurant..
Food ~ Teppanyakki set A or set B - both are so affordable and good foods!
Set A - Miso soup, salad bar, beef, salmon, mixed veggie, fried rice
Salad bar (sweet corn, iceberg lettuce, kidney beans, cucumber, tomatoes, pineapple) - all you can eat - as a appertizer it's nice, must pick Japanese soy sauce to mix with salad
Teppanyakki Beef
Nice! Tendered, no need extra sauce or extra seasoning on it and it's tasty with deep fried garlic slices.. Must eat item
Teppanyakki Salmon
I tried same teppanyakki salmon at TST centre previously and compared with salmon at K11, seems TST centre offered better salmon .. this time salmon seems been overcooked a bit, a bit dry not juicy, but still acceptable.. another different is the chef at K11 teppanyakkied the salmon skin as a OMEGA shape, oooh.. first time to eat crisy salmon skin like potato chip! Funny!
Teppanyakki mixed veggie
Nice! No need too much descriptions ~
Teppanyakki fried rice
Okay.. actually i was too full when fried rice time came! I only ate 2 spoons! But it's nice fried rice
Set B - Miso soup, salad bar, shrimp, scallop, veggie and fried rice
Teppanyakki shrimps
NICE NICE NICE ~ teppanyakkied shrimp with butter.. yummy!
Teppanyakki scallops
Nice Nice - seems shrimp was better but teppanyakkied scallop should not be too bad.. i forgot how to rate this dish as i had too much foods already.. but not bad!
Oh so nice ambiance and yummy teppanyakki foods ~ worth to come again for lunch !!!

We ordered a 4 person set and a few other dishes. The sashime was fresh. The teriyaki is average, too dry. Portion is quite big.

When the bill came, we found out they charged all 6 of us each HKD 15 for the very small seaweed appertizier they provided (which we did not order) For a big Japanese Resturant like this, this looked bad.

We also found out HSBC credit card discount is applicable for a la carte menu only, not for set menu.

The restaurant is less than half full.

餐廳無生意，老細攞嚟招呼朋友，人來人往，像茶餐廳。
日本牛肉品質低劣，物非所值。
食物訂價偏貴，但品質偏低。
銀杏乃本地貨，有苦味。
整體來說，是三流食肆，一流收費。

This is the second time I visited this restaurant.
Last time, I ordered one of the Tepanyaki Set with US beef and lobster etc.
The quality of the US beef was very much unsatisfactory. I don't want to label a restaurant bad without trying out repeatedly.
So, I went there a second time, on 18/7/2010. Like the last time, the restaurant had no customer, except the friends of the boss.
This time, the number of "friends" amounted to more than twenty!
The environment was so noisy, with kids running around, shouting, chasing.
I ordered the most expensive Japanese beef this time. The quality was disappointing with respect to the price. The chef was not skillful nor experienced. The seasoning was either too much or unbalanced.
I stayed in the restaurant for about only half an hour and left, mainly because of the noisy environment.
I can't finish the food.

To pre-celebrate Valentine's Day, honey and I went to Aky for our beloved teppanyaki which is newly opened in K11!

Venue: nice, spacious, we chose to sit in a booth coz we didn't want to sit at the bar facing the chef...haha, but the environment was cozy.

Service: good, the servers were all nice and polite. But since that night not many customers, so some chefs at the sashimi bar kept chatting loudly, that seemed not so professional.

Food - we had ordered two teppanyaki sets + one goose liver
(a) The garlic appetizer was so delicious!
(b) Salad - ok!
(1) Abalone - nice and soft.
(2) Giant Scallop - yummy
(3) Tiger Prawns - very fresh and the prawn heads were full of roes, very nice!
(4) Goose liver - sooo tasty, crispy on the outside but very oily and fat inside.
(5) Angus Beef - delicious
(6) Cod Fish - veryy yummy!
(7) Urin fried rice and Beef noodles - good
(8) Dessert - not bad!

Generally speaking, it was a very wonderful dinner! Actually we firstly ordered a crab set, but when the server told us we had to pay extra for a larger crab (the onl yone left), we changed our menu coz both of us were not so keen in crabs indeed. Prices were very reasonable too!