Nishi — Restaurant in Myaree

This place has absolutely tanked, the food here has been great previously, something you'd tell friends about, now you'd tell friends to avoid it.

From the moment we walked in it seemed a bit off, the restaurant had a funky smell, the smell of smoke and old beef fat coming up out of the carpets which are visibly very worn and dirty. We looked past this and got seated.

The waiter came to take our order, we asked about the sake they had and the waiter left as if they were going to check but then after doing something behind the bar for a while they left and went looking around at tables trying to find something to do. We caught the waiter's attention again and asked if they were still serving us, they said sorry and took our order. We double checked the order was all correct, and the waiter came back to check the drinks order a third time.

After 10 or so minutes our dishes started to arrive but our drinks were still nowhere to be seen. We asked if we could get our drinks before our meal and without a word the food was snatched away in a huff. The wrong sake was brought out, and us raising this was treated as if we were the problem, glasses and sake snatched away, the waiter returned to check which drinks we'd ordered (4th time confirming this now) and how many glasses we wanted for 2 of us.

Our meal then started to arrive again (different dishes to what had been brought out already). Eventually our sake arrived and the same waiter was able to get the water we'd been asking for too.

The crumbed oysters (previously one of my favourites here) taste like I'm going to regret them tomorrow 🤢 The seaweed salad also taste a bit weird, for something that should just come out of a frozen package this is particularly concerning. The assorted sushi plate was majorly disappointing, cold vinegary rice and fish that wasn't trimmed well.

I like to give many chances but I'm done with this place, I could put up with atrocious service if the food was decent but it's so far from there that I don't think they can do it.

Little details that really top off the bad experience are things like the excess bar/restaurant stock being stacked up around the outside of the bar haphazardly and the glass shelves with bottles on them in the bar looking like they've not been...

We ate here for Teppenyaki. Most of my feelings come from comparing to another Teppenyaki restaurant in roughly the same price range.

We had plum and peach cocktails but there’s no fruit and the flavour of both is like cough medicine. Stick with the tap beer, which is fine.

The entrees like mixed tempura are fine although you may be disappointed with the agedashi tofu which is more like thin slices of normal tofu with sauce; not the very flavourful large chunks of special tofu you’d have gotten at Jun or even Super Tetsudo.

The Teppenyaki chef was skilled and engaging. Most of the food was okay but the wagyu steak wasn’t very good, although it was obviously marbled and a great piece of meat, it came out overly cooked and drenched in some sauce and wasn’t very pleasant to eat.

In the other teppenyaki restaurants my impression is they serve a few very high quality carefully prepared ingredients that leave you wanting more, maybe even leaving a little hungry. Nishi focuses on quantity rather than quality, you won’t leave hungry but you won’t be wanting more either.

Parking is good. All of the staff were very attentive and helpful.

The menu for teppenyaki is poorly laid out and confusing and seemingly everyone eating there asked the same questions every single time. The decor is woeful and the chairs are a mix of rickety thin ones and gross looking fabric ones (to quote Gordon Ramsay, those chairs have seen a lot of farts). And the teppenyaki vents were dripping grease though they did cover them before service started; that is a little worrying.

All up it was $320. At those prices it isn’t worth returning or...

10/1/2023 - This place is really let down by the wait staff. The food is very good, but they ask you if you mind what order things come out and then serve you your side salad first regardless, and you have to really work to get any further attention to order a second drink. We had to request multiple times for them to clear plates. We had to ask again for soy sauce for the sashimi. They never refilled the water. We waved someone down to request the dessert menu and when noone came back to take the order, we waved them down yet again with much difficulty. They looked suprised each time. Then they didn't know what was available, but finally took the order and so we waited and waited and waited but nothing came. Yet again, we waved another waiter down (waitstaff consistently avoiding eye contact to the best of their ability) only for the young man who took our original order to finally come back and tell us that what he said was available was actually NOT available. Zero apologies given at any point.

This place costs far too much (we spent ~$70 per head) for this level of service to be acceptable.

Edit 18/5/24 - We visited again to give them another chance. This time the service was just as bad as last time, but so was the food. The restaurant is filthy, it smells musty and like old beef fat. The carpets are filthy and the shelves behind the bar haven't been cleaned since the last time we visited. The quality of the food has also deteriorated and I'm actually worried about the freshness of it all and if I'm going to regret it later... we will not...