Shou Sumiyaki — Restaurant in Melbourne

Wowieee where do I begin 🤩 This restaurant has definitely taken my medal for BEST JAPANESE RESTAURANT in the whole of Melbourne and I’m already planning to have my graduation dinner here HAHAHA AND THATS A YEAR AND A HALF AWAY LMAOOO

FOOD: We ordered the ‘Sukiyaki Beef Ramen’, Mushroom foil pouches and Premium Kobe Wagyu Beef Harami and what else can I say except spectacular...

The ‘Sukiyaki Beef Ramen’ was the best ramen I’ve ever tried in my entire life and though I haven’t tried ramens in Japan, I’ve tried the apparent best ramen place in London and it’s safe to say, Shou Sumiyaki has made me forget about the one in Melbourne. I generally love sukiyaki on its own and to combine it with amazing noodles and some wagyu beef that melts at your tongue?? Absolute GENIUS! The soup was phenomenal and when I tried it, my eyes literally bulged out from how amazing it is. Truly one of the best soup dishes I’ve ever had in my entire life and I would most definitely have it again!

The Kobe Wagyu Beef Harami was a Japanese Barbeque and I was surprised at how unique and most importantly, non-smokey it was! This was my first time trying a Japanese Barbeque so I was abit if a cave woman when it came to how it worked but I definitely understand its appeal and would rank it as my favourite form of barbeque (or maybe Shou Sumiyaki just does it amazingly HAHAHA). The meat itself was so tender and amazing and Shou Sumiyaki provides dips and the dips go so well with the juicy and melty beef but if you want to eat it without any condiments, be my guest because it will be just as amazing!

Even the mushrooms were done beautifully! They were high quality mushrooms and they were so fresh and juicy but the marinate that Shou Sumiyaki provided was also amazing!

SERVICE: Incredibly pleasant and most of all, helpful! The team there were all smiles and really happy to serve you! They were also really helpful to explain how a Japanese barbeque works and they explained everything they put on the table which I definitely appreciated!

Overall, Shou Sumiyaki blew my expectations out of the water and even though I went in with the knowledge of a 4.4 rating, I believe they...

Was really looking forward to dining here with some good friends. Upon arrival they happened to be renovating so was greeted with heavy machinery operating, the management were kind enough to offer us patronage at their sister restaurant next door as an option as well as a choice to stay and dine with a 15% discount on the bill. Our server spoke very English which was a little inconvenient considering we were really hoping to have orders taken promptly. We ordered the all you can eat buffet for 4 and upgraded to the premium add-ons alongside some ala carte items. The food took far longer than it should have considering the restaurant wasn't even at half capacity, alongside ala carte items arriving almost an hour after ordering. The manager did have to step in on numerous occasions where communication with the waitress and her language barrier (bless her she did try). The food was for the most part adequate but the overall atmosphere with the noise, and at one point the entire restaurant had us all suffocating with lack of smoke ventilation from the charcoal fumes and no operational bathroom (had to go next door to their sister restaurant). Was definitely not the experience we had hoped for, but the manager did make an effort to appease the situation and so I write this with some understanding that some things did seem out of her hands. We probably would give it another try one day, but not any time soon with so many other great offerings in Melbourne which have given a much more enjoyable dining experience. Sorry we didn't take any photos, far too much smoke and the food was just so staggered with wait times. Sorry I wish I could write more positively, but certainly a B for effort. One last thing, upon packing up the hot charcoal grill, the male waiter thought it was appropriate to stand on the seat next to me and handle the seating grill pot above my head risking it potentially landing on me and burning me if he were to slip slightly with his grip.. yeah probably won't be back on...

This was one of my wife & I's favourite BBQ restaurants in Melbourne, but the way we were treated tonight by the extremely aggressive manager has totally ruined it for us.

My wife arrived, was told be the waitstaff it would be a 15 minute wait, which was fine. The lady managing the floor then came up and said it would be 30 minutes wait, she was the boss, the staff don’t know anything… ok, that’s weird, but fine, we were happy to wait.

About 20 minutes later a very pleasant staff member says our table is ready, shows us to it, and we sit down, anticipating some tasty BBQ. Several minutes later the manager appears, says we can’t have this table, SHE IS THE BOSS, all these other people waiting in the now quite long queue (who appeared after us) have booked and we haven’t, the staff members don’t know anything (?!) and SHE IS THE BOSS. Her hostile, accusatory tone was way over the top - it was like she was accusing us of somehow sneaking in and stealing a table. All we did was wait patiently and then we did as we were told when a staff member showed us to a table… as you do at a normal restaurant.

Well, this apparently isn’t a normal restaurant. Why was the manager attacking us? I was genuine confused about what she was accusing us of, and just calmly said “You understand a staff member showed us to this table?”. She said SHE WAS THE BOSS and again the staff don’t know anything… no apology, no indication of if/when we would get a table, whether we were being bumped to the end of the long queue of people who had “booked”… nothing.

We took the hint: we were getting kicked out. So we got up and quietly left. Another party who was waiting behind us also left. Absolutely shocking management. I understand staff issues can be frustrating, but taking your anger out on your customers who have only done as they were told is completely unacceptable. A real shame because we quite enjoyed this place...