Okami Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Melbourne

Update* 24/04/22 Re visited okami last night 23/04/22 at 5pm. There was maybe 8 tables of patrons, the service was yet again slow, to the point that twice through the night I had to go up to the bar and request water, napkins, and too ask to order more food. The first round of food came out reasonably fast, then we waited 30 minutes for a waiter to walk around the lower level of tables to finaly grab there attention to make another order. The second round of food came out slow, we ordered vegetable gyoza and it came out cold. Yes one had barely been unfrozen. We had a table of 4 people, we all agreed that it would be the last time we go back to caulfield. I have visited okami in Hampton and hopperscrossing and can honestly say caulfield has the worst, slow service. With the other locations they come to ask how you are going, can they get you more food, they bring fresh water when they see your bottle is empty. Honestly okami caulfield need to retrain there staff from scratch. There staff are lovely and I can't deny that, they just need more attention to detail and to attend more frequently to the customers.

First post* Extremely slow, we waited 30 minutes between dishes and even when we ordered 6 dishes we had to wait 15-30 minutes between dishes. Our water sat empty on our table mosy of the evening. Food quality was below the hampton and Werribee restaurants which we have visited. Very disappointing visiting the caulfield restaurant to find lack of service, huge wait between dishes and lower food quality than the other restaurants. Won't be coming back...

Very disappointed with the experience here. We go to Okami very often (at least once a month). We normally go to the Hampton one and were very happy with the experience. We came to this Caulfield one to give it a go but deeply regret our decision. The food tastes the same as it’s a franchise. However, they deliberately drag out the time it takes to deliver iconic dishes (beef carpaccio, Aburi Nigiri Platter) By dragging out I mean after an hour we still have not gotten our first order that we have placed. Btw, the restaurant is not full (roughly 60% utilised) We love these iconic dishes and they are part of the reason why we visit their restaurant.

We also ordered some drinks (including 2 lychee mojitos) but they didn’t come with mint which is an essential part of mojitos as you know. All other Okami’s that we visited all had mint in their mojitos but this one didn’t. I asked the waiter “you didn’t have mint?” He asked me “oh did you want mint?” I was like “hmm, ye?” Then he said “ah we probably didn’t have any in stock” Mind you that we are the first groups of customers in the restaurant. I don’t think they’ve planned very well nor did they apologise or explain to their customers. When I asked them why it took so long for certain dishes to come, they didn’t explain or apologise at all. Overall, Very very poor service!

The price they charge is the same as all other franchises but the value for money and the service they deliver (by not delivering) is so much worse. Avoid this one if you can and go to other branches instead to save you the...

First time Okami diners!

Tbh when we first walked in we were hit with the smell of urine and then seated just a short distance from where the smell was emitting at the front (also where food was being prepped.)

For a buffet, it was nice! The cooked prawn & sashimi were pretty good, the chicken karage was basically fried chicken skin/fat, the beef was probably the best! Teriyaki & Yakiniku beef! The beef & sliced veges in garlic were drenched in oil but no different from other places. The potato croquettes were wonderful too! Overall, it could have been a 4 stars, especially given seafood is usually a hit or miss - so far no bubble guts! The siumai was pretty trash but it was nice that most of the plates came with side salads.

Our service was pretty half n half, when we were served it was done so with perfect mannerisms however the time it took for our food to arrive was pretty slack, either singularly or sometimes not at all so resorted to ordering 3 items at a time so as to at least have something coming at any given time - we noted the impeccable service given to other patrons and chalked it up to being 2 ppl vs a group of 3 and a large family gathering, not acceptable but explainable.

So we essentially ordered food, waited a longer time in comparison to other diners (15-20mins max with sometimes food not coming at all) and was served 1 plate at a time when they did come. We were pretty rushed towards the last half hour too.

We paid just under $100 for 2 + 4x drinks = Overall, for a super baked foodiegal, I’d probably go here once a...