TUNO Izakaya — Restaurant in Adelaide

As soon as you step in, you can feel how warming the atmosphere is. With mainly dark/black decor and a small dining area it makes quite feel homely. The restaurant has two dining tables and a large tree trunk style tabletop surrounding the yakitori barbecuing area.

With 4 waiter/waitresses between a dining room of 20-25 people, attention for service was easy to attract. Food service was suffice with the yakitori coming out when ready. The ramen did take quite a bit of time (35-40 mins) but we were told afterwards that normally the ramen is served after the yakitori (so if wanting it ASAP make sure to mention so).

The restaurant was spotless. Chopsticks presented with cute paper holders. Tableware and cutlery did not have any sort of blemishes. The only fault here was a plate that was sticky/wet on the bottom causing the table to become sticky.

Food was an 8.5/10. Yakitori had an amazing char-grilled flavour and was easy to eat. All yakitori dishes do come with a small salad and some sauce, some however do not need any sauce. Tsukune (special meat ball) is the best I have had out of the Japanese restaurants I have eaten in this city. Enoki (mushrooms) wrapped in pork belly was incredibly scrumptious and was ordered a second time during the meal.

Ramen: One thing I wished for was a slightly larger serving of ramen. For the average male, one serve of ramen will not be enough for a meal. Tonkotsu (pork broth) had a little hint of fish smell to it but overall was tasty. Noodles were an incredible firmness and texture and had a pleasant bite to them. Chasiu was perfect. Nice and fatty, thinly sliced melt in your mouth pork (also best in this city). Although the flavour was a bit weak, the egg had a beautiful half solid golden yolk making the texture once...

We came into the restaurant for a walk in at 6.30pm. We left the restaurant at 8pm, having eaten a bowl of ramen and only two sets of the yakitori skewers. We originally ordered the chicken thigh and pork belly skewers but the waiter came back 30 mins later saying the chicken was sold out and to choose another. We had to wait a further 30 mins for the other skewers, only for the male waiter to come back saying the pork belly was unavailable (either they forgot the put our order in or gave it away to someone else). We had to ask to follow up. We saw people who came after us get served the same skewers we originally ordered. Then we had to wait further 20 minutes for another skewer which took too long so we cancelled that order and left. We left the restaurant not feeling fully satisfied and still hungry. I was very disappointed with the service and will never be coming back or recommending this Japanese restaurant to anyone. The waiters seem to be forgetful and not recall our order which left us feeling ignored. I had high hopes for a yakitori restaurant in Adelaide but to be sold out of skewers within an hour seems very unreasonable. For your waiters to look lost every time we ask a question is extremely...

Would give it a 0.5 if I could. I would not recommend the Black Garlic Ramen AT ALL. I got the Black Garlic Ramen and it was almost completely flavourless, not to mention the weak garlic taste. I’m not sure if it was just my specific serving or this specific dish (maybe the other soups are better) but it tasted like water. The consistency was similar to a thick, rich broth like authentic tonkatsu ramen, which was promising. But it just ended up being gluggy and left me with the feeling that my throat was being covered in a film. The chashu meat was almost only fatty pieces which added to the glugginess. The egg was hard boiled instead of the classic ramen jammy-egg consistency. It was just bad on so many levels. Ive had black garlic ramen many times before and this was just an abomination. I would be interested to see if anything else on the menu was good, and give them the benefit of the doubt, but honestly I don’t know if I would try anything from here again. I strongly recommend not bothering with this place at all, or at the very least, get something else...