Pro: good presentation of food, which was reasonable quality. I would give it about 3.5!5 based on what we thought it could be. Con: little engagement due to phone-based ordering, lack of variety of fish, odd choice of dishes that didn’t inspire interest…. Not great value.

This had the promise of being a great Japanese restaurant in the SE of Melbourne, and to be honest the food is quite good, and well presented. However, there are few things that stops this being memorable (for the right reasons).

Firstly if you haven’t been here before, don’t believe their website photos (they are excellent at providing a very misleading impression that this is classier than it is). Our experience was sitting out (on a warm March night) outside being dripped on by an overhead sign. We moved tables 3 times (admittedly they were v accommodating).

The thing that feels most jarring is the dependence on using your phone to effectively order online from your table… which means you are encouraged to constantly grab your phone - which in my book is a culinary sin. It would be better to have their own device, but perhaps this is Covid thing, or just cost saving.

Also, it means you are asked to provide phone/email details to eat there - and unless you want to provide their website with a record of your credit card, you have to enter your credit card every single time you order something…also, they have staff walking up and down - but they aren’t waiters - they just serve food (thanks to the phone based service).

The food is good - but this is also why it gets 3 stars. For a seafood-based restaurant, it’s amazing to me that they essentially just provide either salmon or kingfish (the latter being not the tastiest of fish) for most of their sushi/sashimi. The platter which should be their signature dish was competent, but quite unsatisfying… the problem we had was that after the platter, there was nothing on their menu that enticed us - or even intrigued us to try. The drink choice was also poor - my wife had to make do with a bottled lemon-lime-bitters… and very few alcoholic options (if you don’t like Asahi beers)

In the end, as a PAYG restaurant we just left -leaving us feeling like we were doing takeaway at someone else’s house (while they weren’t home). Maybe this is a post-Covid concept to reduce interaction with people, but it left us feeling like we should have ordered to go.