WAZA Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Melbourne

my partner and i wanted to try a new place as we have eaten at a lot Japanese restaurants and tried many different types of ramen. reviews seems good so decided to give it a shot.

Only to arrive peak dinner time and not a single person dining in and a single worker behind the counter which was concerning as a good quality restaurant is never fully empty even more so around dinner time. We ordered the Tonkotsu ramen and karaage chicken. Might actually be hands down the worst tonkotsu ramen ive ever had the displeasure of attempting to eat.

Ramen arrived way too quickly maybe within 3 minutes after ordering which means it's mostl likely pre cooked and heated in a microwave. While looking decent like what you see in the photos the taste was ungodly aweful. The broth was just water, not rich and creamy like it should be but the biggest issue was everything smelled FISHY which is a common sign of boar taint from the pork or the meat is going bad and this translated to the entire dish as when you went in for a bite you just get this overpowering pungent smell. This smell and taste seeped into everything ruining the entire bowl.

My partner and i finished maybe 1/3rd of our bowl before we walked out.

The chicken Karaage was also overcooked where is was a dark brown and in some parts going black. Seriously how do you mess up cooking basic chicken dishes?

i have no idea why this place is rated as high as it is. For the $19 they charge for the signature Tonkotsu ramen alone It's not even remotely worth it. Do yourself a favor and drive to the city and go to shujinko at flinders, musashi or hakata for proper authentic raman experience.

Avoid this place If you value your money and most importantly...

To be honest, the moment me and my family walked in, there was no one at the counter!

I really didn’t like the food as well. Because, the sauce on the tempura was red-ish, pink-ish. And there was also another brown sauce. I couldn’t tell which sauce was spicy because there were 2 sauces. And I know some people don’t like spice so it’s not really good if there isn’t an option that’s not spicy. Because I don’t like spicy things too but there wasn’t a non-spicy option. And the sauce ( in my opinion) was REALLY REALLY SPICY!!!

The octopus balls were good though. I think that was the yummiest part of my meal. But there was sadly, only sauce at the bottom of the cup. So eating the top ones weren’t really enjoyable for me.

The curry udon wasn’t THAT spicy so I think most people will be able to eat it.

The curry rice was ok.

There were a lot of desserts there but, I thought I already had a bad meal so, I decided to go somewhere else for dessert. I also thought because the food wasn’t good the dessert wouldn’t be good too.

The service also wasn’t good. When me and my family came in, two people also came after us. But, the person serving us COMPLETELY IGNORED US!!! They greeted the other people first but we came first! It made us angry😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡and that we weren’t there.

Overall, the restaurant wasn’t good. I will NEVER go there again!

#NOT...

I don't normally leave reviews but I feel a lot of the reviews for this restaurant are skewed due to the free drink promotion they offer. We ordered tofu udon, chasyu ramen and a salmon sushi. You're honestly better off buying a hand roll from sushi-sushi for a 3rd of the price. Likely not an ideal cut of salmon because it was chewy despite the small size. Ramen brooth was okay, but by gosh, i dont think you can cut chasyu any thinner; better off with thicker and fewer slices. We asked if the udon could be cooked a little longer to soften for our 2yo and we were told no they won't, the udon is meant to be chewy and that we should have ordered a different noodle. 50c for a take away container is probably not reasonable. I wonder if they charge that for all the take-aways they do. Also, 4.5% surcharge on credit card. Below average Japanese for the price and pretty poor customer service. I do feel bad leaving a bad review considering the lockdowns, but honestly, probably one the worst Japanese experiences we've had and we've had a lot...