Sakae Japanese Dining Bar — Restaurant in Sydney

Lovely staff but very lacklustre (but very cheap) food.

We (my wife and I) went here today because we were jonesing for some katsu and sushi. This is not our regular haunt for sushi but we thought we'd try someplace different as we were already shopping in Eastwood.

For starters we got the beef tataki. This is something we both absolutely love and have tried it all around the world. Sadly, this was a truly abysmal mess over here. Over seasoned, sauce-saturated slices of flavourless beef (guessing the meat wasn't fresh or high quality). To excerbate matters, it appears that the beef was burnt while searing so there was a very distinct burnt taste to the slices of beef. I'd recommend dropping this from the menu as this was an absolute travesty.

I got a pork katsu and my wife got an unagi bento.

The pork katsu don was mediocre. The crumbing on the katsu was soggy and I have a distinct suspicion that it was refried prior to serving. The pork inside was overly chewy and very bland. The rice was not good quality japanese rice (like the ones from Nippon foods). The whole thing was a big bowl of meh. On the plus side though, the portion size was huge... and given how inexpensive this was, this would be passable for some. This is fairly evident when you read the reviews here.

The unagi bento was quite decent and given the price, it was very good value. The salmon sashimi was quite flavourless though and most likely not sashimi grade salmon (or not fresh enough).

All in all we paid $43 all included, so its very inexpensive, but we'd have paid a fair bit more for a higher quality meal.

I see a lot of comments here saying its the best japanese food in Eastwood, which if true, makes me shudder to think how bad the the other japanese places in Eastwood are.

Overall a big disappointment with not enough redeeming qualities. The ratings given are not indicative of the quality of the...

I love the freshness of the Sakae chains, especially the little hole in the wall outlet in the city. So imagine my delight when I find that they have an outlet in Eastwood, which is much easier for me to get to.

The sit-in experience is usually decent - they have fresh food and the service is attentive, most of the time. They can be slightly on the pricey side, especially when I'm used to much more value for money places that are available in the city, but it's a convenience that I'm willing to pay for.

I also tend to order over-the-phone for pickup, and this is where they seem to lose their edge. I've been over-charged twice, and had issues trying to explain it to the person at the counter, before the manager steps in and apologised. The staff member taking my payment has also tried to pretend that they are a cash only restaurant, even though I remember clearly that they accept eftpos for orders over $15. When I asked about it, the staff member looked guilty and brought out the eftpos machine. It was thoroughly confusing, and I don't think that the food is unique enough to outweigh the experience.

I've moved on to Zenya down the road, who actually rewards me for my loyalty and gives me excellent service every time, no matter...

Saw a place called Sakae Japanese dining bar. Had already had dinner, went in and ordered a small warm sake to share between us. The place was not full at the time. After we finished our Sake we were told we had to order food as well as a drink, we were confused by this rule but agreed and asked for the ice cream dessert. We were told that wasn't food and that we must order food as well (which no one had told us when we ordered the sake). Waitress said they are not a bar... Odd given their name literally says Sakae and bar. There's no liquor license law that says every customer who orders a drink must also order food. So I'm not sure where this rule comes from but it is a ridiculous rule and we should have been...