Kaisen Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Brisbane City

Food My wife and I dined on a Sun eve in early Feb. We stuck to a fairly simple ordering protocol: Two drinks to start, a bottle of Asahi super dry for myself at the eye-popping price of 10 pesos and a cold drink for my wife at 5. For the food, it was a plate of vegetarian spring rolls to start (9) followed by two bento boxes at 21 each; the chicken teriyaki for my wife and the beef teriyaki for me. Our waitress should have told us that the bento boxes both included a veg spring roll, so we ended up with six spring rolls between us, more than we could deal with. But they were nice and crispy and filled with a tasty veg filling. The bento boxes were pretty good value, each one with lashings of tender, well cooked meat, rice, garden salad, pickles, seaweed salad, a spring roll, a prawn cutlet, and what tasted like a cheese ball, but I’m not sure if that’s what it was. Everything was fresh and tasty and we both enjoyed our meals.

Service I noticed that the restaurant was flat out dealing with take-away and home delivery orders. This is becoming more and more the norm these days, and to be honest, I hate it, as it’s a complete distraction from what should be their bread and butter customers: sit-down diners. But despite that, I was surprised that there was no compromise on the table service. Our pretty waitress was neatly dressed in a black uniform. After a bit of gesticulating to attract her attention, she eventually arrived to take our orders. Drinks, entrée and the bentos came out quickly and in the correct order. I just wished she would have suggested that we choose something else other than spring rolls for our entrée. Apart from that though, I give her full marks for being polite, friendly and efficient.

Atmosphere I found the ambience to be quite utilitarian with stone floors, plain walls, wooden tables and plastic chairs or upholstered benches on the wall side (some damaged as can be seen in my pic). The presence of numerous uber eats, and Door Dash drivers and take-away customers all queued up and waiting for their orders, made the atmosphere hectic and busy but not in a pleasant way and hardly conducive to a relaxing night out. It reminded me of a busy railway station. I’m now really starting to get turned off dining at these smaller suburban restaurants which now rely mainly on the home delivery and takeaway trade to fill their order books.

Cost This is where things went a bit pear-shaped. I had chosen Keisen because, as a member of the Entertainment Club, I thought that I was entitled to receive a 25% discount up to a max of 25 pesos, but the manager simply refused to honour the offer. Naturally, I was furious, and protested to him, but it was all to no avail and I ended up paying 65 pesos. Imagine that: two bento boxes, two drinks and a few spring rolls for 65 pesos. No wonder the Albanese govt is nowhere to be seen when it comes to dealing with this crazy Weimar Republic style hyperinflationary crisis we are all enduring.

Toilets & Parking There are clean and well provisioned toilets just outside the venue in the little common area that Keisen shares with the rather down-at-heel next door Darling & Co restaurant. There’s free and unrestricted parking in any of the nearby side streets. We chose Campbell St, behind the Paddo pub and bistro.

Summary Service is fast and efficient. Food is acceptable in a rather drab atmosphere dominated by a conveyor belt of take-away customers and home delivery drivers. Prices are reasonable. I guess it’s an ok place for a quick meal.

Memo I note that Keisen have now belatedly been removed from Entertainment’s list of participating restaurants for the...

Sadly not able to accommodate gluten free, which is unusual for a Japanese restaurant. Told nothing on the menu would be suitable except edamame and that the chef could make me salmon or tuna sushi rolls only. Was surprised they didn’t offer nigiri as an option as per the pictures on the building which attracted us in. The chef was friendly enough and I appreciated the honesty but was all quite surprising and disappointing.

The rolls were quite average and I struggled to eat them. The salmon was cut in large cubes.

I was only given 1 tiny fish shaped gf soy sauce and a small saucer with a splash in it. When I immediately requested more, I was given 1 more fish which wasn’t a great feeling. Was painful having to continually request more (with great delay) and gave off a cheap restaurant feel.

They had many Uber eats orders going out the door which would be priority over basic service with only one wait staff.

My husband had gyoza and a ramen soup. He said it was ok.

My glass of wine came so late, I didn’t even have time to finish it so we left. There were only 2 other tables.

Sadly won’t go back although Japanese is our favorite cuisine and this place is walking...

We came for lunch with some visiting relatives and ordered a variety of food; my choice was the spicy chicken bento ($20.90). This is perhaps a bit pricier than your typical casual Japanese eatery bento but it was also bigger in terms of both the physical bento container and the amount of food within. Nice variety of items in the set and overall I was pretty happy with my feed. My only gripe was that the food for our group came out over a 20-minute span, so some people were still battling hangriness when others were almost done with their meal.

There’s enough seating inside to accommodate larger groups. They also do 5% when paying by cash.

Other food ordered: Sashimi special $29.90 Kaisen roll $16.90 California roll $8.90 Karaage curry $14.90 Agedashi tofu $8.90 Chips $8.90 Soft...