Call Me Curry & Izakaya — Restaurant in Adelaide

A prime location on Hindley Street comes with some pretty reasonable expectations, unfortunately they fell short for me this evening..

It's uncommon for me to leave bad reviews, but I'm going to risk sounding like a Karen here and be honest. As a Retail Worker with a decade on the frontlines I've had my share, so I get it. I believe the bad experience I had this evening consisted of several things that could improve with a bit of time, and some considerations.

We saw the advertisement for Call Me Curry and Izakaya on TikTok and immediately booked a table for 6:30PM the following day.

Upon arrival at 6:33PM, the Server was prompt and friendly to meet us at the door. It didn't look packed, pretty average Saturday evening. I told them I'd booked for two, and they gestured to a table with no reservation sign on it. This left me feeling that perhaps if I'd booked later, I may not have gotten a table at all.

After our order was taken two minutes later I noticed there were no chopsticks on the tables, which was odd. I politely excused myself and tried to get the attention of the Server who had finished taking the order of the table directly perpendicular to us. I assume she hadn't heard me, because she sped off at Mach 5. When she returned to wipe their table down, I asked again politely, and it seemed like she pretended not to hear me.

I'm pretty convinced of this because my voice was loud enough that the table next to us heard me also, and because I do the exact same thing when I'm getting swamped by customers and I'm stressed at work. It's one of those "I can see you in my peripheral vision but I'm pretending I didn't see you because I've already got enough to do" looks. If you've worked in Customer Service before, you know what I mean. It could just be that I got off a Saturday shift and assumed that was the case.

So I gave up asking and started watching the rest of the Servers, and began noticing they all looked anxious or stressed. I imagine many of them were new, which I respect. Gotta start somewhere, right? But the general vibe was that the kitchen was on fire.

Anyways, we got out drinks (Please learn how to make a Lemon Lime Bitters correctly, you coat the glass! It's an Aussie icon for a reason! 😭) and after an hour and three minutes, my Hamburg and Pork Katsu Curry arrived. I dived into my Hamburg first, and it was red raw. If it was a steak I wouldn't have bat an eye, but you don't mess with raw mince.

My partner had the Ramen, the broth was good, the soft-boiled egg and pork were good too. Eating the Ramen noodles with a fork "felt a bit too much like eating spaghetti" according to her.

I didn't kick up a stink or anything, just quietly took it to the counter and the Server promptly apologised and offered to have another made, but I politely refused. I believe the chef (or owner?) also came to the table and very politely apologised and offered to cook me something else which was considerate. Again I politely refused, my cibophobia (fear of food poisoning) was on very high alert at that point.

Perhaps in future I'll revisit when some things have changed, I...

Heard good things, so decided to make a reservation for lunch today.

First thing I noticed was the tables along the booth were very close to each other, it was difficult to get in/out of the tables whilst being mindful not to bump into your neighbours table.

We also noticed my dad’s glass was cracked, not great attention to detail from the servers. There was only about 20 people in the restaurant and the servers seemed flustered.

20 minutes for Karaage seemed a little long considering there was only about 10 people waiting for their meals. 10 minutes after the Karaage, my fathers Donburi arrived. We patiently waited for 5 minutes for my bowl of ramen to arrive before asking if my meal was coming. We were assured it was coming, and then another 5 minutes later my Ramen arrived. Whilst waiting for my meal, my father had almost finished his. Also two tables that ordered ramen after us were served before me.

Perhaps the owners should visit Japan to experience true Japanese hospitality, because they certainly didn’t have it here. Hopefully they can iron out the creases soon otherwise their restaurant will...

I ordered the pork chop curry the taste was alright, but even as a woman, I didn’t feel full after finishing it. I imagine a guy would probably need two mains to feel satisfied. For the price of $28 I was expecting more. Also, when the curry arrived, I took a bite right away and it was just lukewarm, really not an acceptable temperature.

I also had two skewers, but they didn’t taste like they were cooked over charcoal at all. The scallop had no grilled flavor, and the chicken skin wasn’t crispy, it felt like they just lightly torched on already cooked skin for few second.

The seating wasn’t particularly comfortable either. And one thing I found strange, are new restaurants these days allowed to not offer restrooms for customers? This place had a fancy automatic glass door but no...