Jazushi — Restaurant in Sydney

It’s been a while since we were here. I have recommended this place to hundreds of people over the last 4 years of living in Surry Hills. We came as a walk-in on a Friday eve (knowing we would have to wait a bit, given busy night). Sadly I noticed some negative changes. I spent 20 yrs in hospo specialising in Japanese, in the past & this used to be my favourite Japanese restaurant for value-to-quality dining experience. Most the wait staff looks new since we were last here. Some of the FoH staff seems to either have less experience or less care than previous staff (from 1-3 yrs ago). In the past, doors were open for us on the way in & out, water was brought straight away, dishes pre-bussed before new dishes & table fully cleared before check presented. This time, out of all that only the door was opened for us on way in. Also there is a new chef (at least 1 or more new BoH staff). There seemed to be a significant delay with sushi kitchen side. (Granted I expected to wait; just not an hour for the 1st dish/roll). Experience would indicate the new chef either is far less experienced than the prev one, you were short handed or both. I noticed that some FoH staff seemed really clued in when interacting with guests and others didn’t. I get holidays can be a challenging time w/ some staff away, so for now I will be hopeful that this was a 1 off. I will return for 1 more try & hopefully the great service and food I remember from the past will be found...

Went here with a friend for lunch and had their set menu. The quality of the food overall was pretty good, however it was a very light lunch. First course were the oysters, Im typically not a fan of ginger but i enjoyed the Oyster ginger Granita- refreshing and a little fishy. The salmon was AMAZINGGGGG, the dressing complimented the salmon so well, didn't taste fishy at all. Then the kingfish- the wasabi and soy sauce mixture was a bit too strong in my opinion, but it was still good. The last shared course were the scallops and oh my god they were divine. Creamy cheesy heavennnnn, one of my favourite things i had.

Now onto the mains, you get a very small side of rice, salad and miso soup. The miso soup was a lot deeper than your typical restaurant miso, quite salty! The salad wasn't anything new, but it added good balanced. For our mains we got the chicken katsu and the JFC chicken ( Jazushi fried chicken). Katsu was fine, but DAMN the JFC was DELICIOUS, so juicy and crunchy!! yummy. I wished we had more meat though, since the mains felt a bit too small.

Overall I would love to come back and try their other options, they have a few donburis and ramens at a good price. Service was alright, the staff were a bit shy- and not sure if they spoke alot of english. Each course took some time to arrive, but thats just a given with set menus I guess. Short walk from central station, def come here for good japanes food at a...

I wish I could give this place zero star.

We arrived at the restaurant early, and at that time, there was only one table of customers (about 2-3 people). But we still waited half an hour for our takeaway lunch. During that time, many people came in and sat down, and it was obvious their orders were being prioritised over ours. I approached the front desk staff a few times to ask about our order, and each time she just told me, "It's coming soon," followed by endless waiting.

After thirty minutes, I couldn’t stand it anymore and asked her why our order still wasn’t ready. It had already been over 30 minutes—our entire lunch break was wasted just waiting! Only then she went over and looked at two takeaway bags in the kitchen, which clearly had been sitting there for a while—they just needed to add an onsen egg (which should have been already prepared). Because of this, the restaurant ended up wasting a lot of our time, and no one even offered an apology.

When we got back, I thought: since we waited so long, the food had better be good. But it was absolutely terrible! My rice ($24) was completely cold, the beef was disgusting, either for its texture or the seasoning, the seasoning was strange, and I didn’t even finish it. My colleague’s dumplings ($15) were tiny and had no flavor at all.

In short, this place was a complete waste of both...