Taketori fusion japanese food — Restaurant in Melbourne

Taketori has been around for quite a while I reckon, I came across this place multiple times on social media and finally decided to try it yesterday night.

First of all, booking system is very weird. There is a Quandoo built in on their website, only which doesn’t seem to work at all. So I rang the restaurant multiple times and nobody answered the phone. Then moments later, a random phone number called back, with no introduction at all, the lady on the phone asked me in Chinese whether I’m trying to make a reservation. Confused with how they figured out that I am indeed a chinese speaking person and confirming whether she is calling from Taketori, I successfully secured myself a table.

Now I will focus on my experience at Taketori. Unagi three ways is highly recommended. The unagi was so soft and goes extremely well with the tea broth (chazuke). The sukiyaki was pretty solid, a lot of ingredients and some decent quality beef slices for only $60.

The lobster maki took almost forever to come out, it was served by the end of our meal. Which I was quite surprised as maki roll is something quite quick and easy to make. The lobster maki did not tasted good and is definitely not worth $30. There was a generous chunk of lobster within the roll indeed, however, it tasted very salty, I assume that it has been bathed in salt water earlier to preserve it’s freshness. Otherwise, they are using some sort of canned/prepackaged lobster meat. Not to mention that it had a tough and old texture.

For desserts, we ordered a matcha crepe cake but was served a yuzu crepe cake + a scoop of matcha icecream instead. We were only looking at the photos on the menu when ordering the cake, and an image of a matcha crepe cake was clearly printed on the menu. So we thought that’s what we would get. We double checked with the waitress and she first answered that they sold out on matcha crepe cake today. Given the circumstances, we tried the eat the yuzu crepe cake, and it was not nice at all. The yuzu cream was quite sour, which I think the sourness dominated the yuzu aroma completely. Tasted a bit like cream that have turned bad if you ask me. We approached the waitress again to see whether if we can get something else instead (at this point we still thought it was their mistake for not telling us matcha crepe cake is not available today). Then the waitress started telling us that the menu did say yuzu cake with matcha icecream, and showed us the menu to proof it. She was right, it’s just that the image and text on the menu didn’t match up. We took it as our mistake for not reading the menu details carefully though. But when we got our bill, it prints matcha crepe cake, so this leaves me with many questions in my head.

Service was attentive, but the waitress who served us looked angry the entire night. I just read another review posted a month ago mentioning the same issue. Not sure what makes...

Lovely place we've been going there for years. The food is incredible. Normally served by a man and woman who seem to run the place.

However today I went in and the vibe was significantly different. Not sure if the ownership has been changed or if it's just some other staff/ managers on today. I go to this place because it's affordable but fancy... It really gives a beautiful feeling, and strikes the balance between approachable and finer dining.

Today however it sounded like someone was taking a call on loudspeaker? Like who? If a customer: rude. If an employee???? Even ruder. The place was quiet and when we entered it looked like it was only staff (one guy was sitting eating but turns out to be wearing an apron). As we perused our menus all I could hear in the background was a man's tinny voice through a loudspeaker phone... I have sensory issues and this was precisely the reason I came to this restaurant. I might be paying $80 a head or more while I'm sitting in what feels like a tram? No thanks.

Then I saw with my own two eyes one of the managers cancel a call (or what looked like it) on a phone suspended behind the counter. When she came to us we asked what that noise was, she was somewhat confused but when she finally figured it out she just said "it's finished it won't happen again." I dunno, I just felt like she could have been a bit more honest. How was I supposed to know she won't make another louspeaker call, after we've ordered food? I got the impression she also recognised it was inappropriate since she didn't say what it was, but somehow believed it was okay to just have there? All desire to stay disappeared. We left.

In short: the food is amazing, the service is hit and miss, and the atmosphere is hit and miss. I do not intend to eat at a quiet restaurant for the music and ambience it was designed for to be disrupted by some random loudspeaker voice through a tinny phone. I think it's deeply unprofessional and disrespectful. This restaurant honesty lost a lot of my respect tonight, if they think that that was an appropriate noise to have in a quiet restaurant, but even if not, also by the way the staff didn't just accept accountability and own it, I don't need to hear other people's phone conversations, let alone the management of and establishment.

I'm honestly not sure I'll go back. But if you're a stranger or new to the restaurant and looking for a place, and you don't care about noise... Then this is a good place for you. The food is...

I was so excited to be staying at a hotel with a Japanese fusion restaurant next door that I had dinner way earlier than my normal 6PM (5PM!)!

The waitress was so friendly and kindly. She said she is only a few days into the job and it did not show except in her telling me. I am fine being told that. I am a fairly easy-going eater, except...

I do not like onions. The texture, not the flavour or smell. And I inadvertently ordered a meal which was 50+% onion! My instinct to tell the waitress to ask for no onions was hampered by worry that fussing staff only causes accidental, extra problems - embarrassment, awkwardness, long wait to get food to be made special. And, the pic of the meal looked liked it had capsicum in it, with the description saying "with vegetables" (Gyuniku No Teriyaki 牛肉の照り焼き). It was over $30

I also ordered potato croquettes.

The meals came out in less than 15 minutes, steaming and bubbling hot.

I was quite proud that I could eat all of it - bar the onions - with chopsticks.

The croquettes were cheesy, gooey on the inside and crumbed, fat on the outside. Comes with Japanese style mayo (Kewpie, I hope).

Overall, the meal was good however I ended up paying $56 for two foods and a 375ml Coke. This is not a criticism of Taketori per se: everything eating out feels like this these days (I rarely eat out not even junk food, so costs can be shocking to me). I should also research beforehand.

Again, good restaurant, lovely waitress, and freshly cooked, hot food served in good time. They do have ramen, bento, don buri and unagi on the menu. Next time I will try...