Okami Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Adelaide

All you can eat sushi was a bit of an understatement from our first and only time visiting Okami. A well-meaning establishment stemming from the friendly and understanding staff, however the number of patrons did not reflect the number of staff required to cater for a Saturday night shift. We had a 6-8 pm seating for pax 4.

TL’DR: Food comes out quickly initially, but as soon as it gets busy, you can expect up to 1 hour+ wait for sushi to come out. Friendly and accommodating staff, but customer service alone cannot make up for the lack of bellies filled with ‘all you can eat sushi’.

Our initial order partially came out promptly and steadily, where we received a single platter of sushi/ sashimi and various fried foods. However, the rate and variety of food became non-existent once the restaurant became busier. We appreciate that restaurants get busy, but at the one-hour mark, our group received more fried food items than sushi items (what we mainly came here for!).

We utilised the ‘call assistant’ feature on the allocated tablet to get an ETA on our food, as we had to be done with dinner by 730 pm for our next appointment. We waited patiently for 15 minutes, but no one arrived; we even tried to grab multiple people’s attention. It wasn’t until I physically waited by the entrance of the kitchen for someone to talk to me, and it wasn’t until the second staff member that I spoke to (most likely then duty manager) to then actually provide an ETA on our outstanding sushi order (not fried food). We made it very clear that we would like to cancel any outstanding food if it wasn’t going to come by 730pm – we don’t want to waste food either.

The staff member assured our group that our food was being bumped up and would be on our table within the next 10-15 minutes. However, this makes no sense as there should be some order or priority of food being made/allocated to tables. Why should other tables also wait? We did receive a couple more items within that timeframe and waited an additional 5 minutes past our planned departure time for the outstanding items, but our four collective bellies were simply filled with fried foods, a lack of sushi, and a lot of disappointment. We utilised 75% of our allocated eating time (6-730 pm) but only received 60% of our food. Quick maths indicates that these variables are in fact, not equal.

It makes us wonder if we didn’t order any fried, or non-sushi related items, would we have received any food at all? We appreciate that our drinks were comped but it’s very unlikely that we will visit again nor recommend others to visit.

Feedback: It’s my understanding that online orders are also another source of orders. It was very noticeable that these online orders significantly affected the in-restaurant experience, where perhaps these online orders were prioritised over the in-restaurant patrons, in particular to the sushi items being made.

A dedicated person should be running the counter – it’s unacceptable to have patrons dawdling around waiting for a table or having food delivery service drivers meander through the restaurant demanding their pick-up orders.

I would suggest having wasabi be also included in some menu items i.e. the sashimi platter should come with wasabi, rather than have wasabi be individually ordered. We made initial jokes that we would be done with the sashimi before the wasabi would arrive (I guess Okami had the last laugh)

It makes no sense to be served sashimi first and then have the wasabi be brought out AFTER the sashimi has been finished (noting that we did not receive any wasabi despite...

I visited various Okami in NSW for All-You-Can-Eat many times. It was my first time visiting Glenunga Okami last night, 14 February, on Valentine's Day for AYCE.

I booked a table for 5 at 7:00 pm. When we arrived, the restaurant was almost full but a few tables were already vacated, just awaiting tidying up. We asked for a tablet for placing orders and the waitress said we could only get a tablet if we were going to do AYCE (Our previous visits to Okami were all aimed for AYCE only, so almost completely forgot that they also do a-la-carte).

We placed orders for around 10 to 15 items in the first place, including one Sushi and Sashimi Platter and two Sushi rolls (California Roll & Prawn Roll). The cold dishes (except sushi / rolls) that we ordered were served gradually and pretty fast. The hot dishes that we ordered were served later on but still fast. A few hot dishes had been waited quite long though but eventually most dishes that we ordered were served (perhaps one or two were missed). We didn't wait until all previously ordered food had arrived before we ordered a bit more, as we knew sometimes not every ordered food would come.

I would say the overall quality of food was pretty good (on the price they charged) and they were slightly better than the food quality generally provided by various Okami in Sydney.

Unfortunately, when we finished our two hours time slot at 9:10 pm, the Sushi & Sashimi Platter that we ordered at 7:12 pm and the Sushi Nigiri Platter that we ordered after around half time were not served. We raised these issues twice to the waitresses about 30 and 10 minutes before our end time but no help.

My observations were that the only one bartender not just needed to prepare drinks but also needed to prepare the Sushi platters and rolls. Perhaps for most customers ordered on a-la-carte basis, most of them had ordered either Sushi platters or sushi rolls as their main orders, therefore my orders were never prioritised by the bartender as he probably knew that I had been served with some other cold / hot dishes.

I saw the bartender was not an Eastern Asian so I didn't have much expectation on the Sushi or rolls. I didn't place more order or chased too hard as other cold or hot food were served pretty fast and were in good quality. We sat just next to the cashier counter so we were aware that most customers had a bit of complaints when they settled their bills. We were a bit disappointed too as the two sushi platters had never come. Luckily the focus of my young children were always on the little ice-cream that were showed on the tablet as "Sold-Out" but in fact were available as there was a little sign said so on each table. Having said all the above, our overall satisfaction was still acceptable so I would definitely come back again.

Anyway, though their staff were generally good and nice, they all looked a bit too busy during the whole night. I hope their services will be improved in the future, such as providing one tablet to each table (reduce workload of staff), or use other system by the customer's own device by scanning a QR code, or separating the bartender's task from preparing Sushi platters / rolls etc. Hope it will be less messy next time if I visit during peak times like festivals or special...

We had a disappointing experience that seemed to be shared by alot of guests who attended the venue tonight.

There were a few dishes ordered early on that never arrived. I raised the issue with the waiters and was told that they didn't want to upset kitchen staff by following up the missed orders. Then we saw the same platter that we had then ordered twice, coming out to other tables. It never was rectified and served to us.

We had some success with ordering after this first minor hiccup. Following this we encountered more challenges.

We then ordered a series of dishes of which only approximately 2 out of 6 were delivered. Approximately 30 minutes after ordering, I informed the wait staff that we were still waiting. We ordered a few more dishes, hoping that something would be delivered to our table. After another 20 mins, 1 dish came out. I raised the point again and was informed it would be 5 mins. This was not the case. We ended up leaving as our session was up.

I explained the issue to the person at the register but was met with no real discussion. Told them there was probably 7+ dishes somewhere in the process over the last hour that never came out. Our 2 hour session was over, we paid and left. Would have been cheaper to pay for each item.....but how could I trust their tally (they ran out of tablets to order on so it was done manually).

Recommendation is to order more than you want because you can anticipate a number won't come out. Order a bulk immediately and you might get enough of it over your 2 hour session.

Definitely overpriced due to the missing dishes. Witnessed other tables raising their concerns with the staff there too. Have been there before with no issues but tonight's staff were completely out of their depth. Hard to...