Tara Sushi Bar — Restaurant in Sydney

Absolutely Disgusting - and i’m not someone to ever usually say that about food but this was a different level.

So we go after watching heaps of videos online and reviews supporting this place (most i’m sure have to be paid or AI) and their all you can eat for $39. We get there and the ambience is weird. It’s quite a small restaurant, no music playing, no kitchen noises or the usual hustle of a sushi train, just a weird quietness. Service was blunt but not bad. There were 2 chefs, both of which were very far from being Japanese, but we give it the benefit of the doubt. Lord that was a mistake.

The train itself was sad. There were probably about 3 different dishes which filled the train all of which looked gross just endlessly going around all night. No customer touched them, we were there for a long time and no staff member changed them or replaced them, I dread to think how long they sit there for. We order some sides off the menu. The sashimi is limited to 1 plate per person. It wasn’t bad but the kingfish was not very nice and incredibly chewy. Then the rest arrives. The gyoza were straight mush, out of the 8 takoyaki’s we got 2 had a tiny piece of octopus in them, and the karage…. oh my lord. I was insulted as someone who enjoys Japanese food. It was tough, chewy, soggy and barely microwaved. That’s when we noticed the only sound coming from the kitchen was the “ding” of the microwave. EVERYTHING was microwaved - we never saw a pan or wok used once.

Then comes the sushi. The cooked tuna is disgusting, the texture was like pure mush and it tasted old and not fresh. All other sushi dishes were bland, scallops tasted fake and everything was either tasteless, warm/cold at the same time or mush.

At this point the chefs start to put some more items on the train - yet none have a lid on them!!! Yes, it was all out in the open for people to cough on, flies to get to and anything else to contaminate it. Then we watch a chef put a scallop (in its shell) on the train with no plate before a waiter fixed it!!! What the hell?!

This horrendous experience was finished with their “homemade” ice cream. Until I took a scoop to see a hair in it! How the hell do you get hair in ice cream??

Save yourself the disgust and disappointment and avoid this place. I’ve eaten a lot of food around the world, yet somehow I think this is the worst food I’ve ever...

Enticed by the "all you can eat" offer, yet still skeptical, I went to Tara sushi bar with my overexcited girlfriend. Upon arrival, I was told that I could only have things from the sushi train and can't order any sushi plates of my own. All this was fine and we sat down at the bar to see our choices. What was very disappointing yet not that surprising was that the only plates on the sushi train were the cheapest uramaki options with no fish anywhere to be seen.

I grabbed a plate of uramaki with beef another with chicken. The rice was hard, stale and stuck to each other such that the rolls fell apart trying to separate them. The meat also tasted dry and unimpressive.

Clinging onto hope that the sushi train would be refilled with some fish options, I could only see the chefs putting on more fishless uramaki onto the train. Another surprise was the complete lack of nigiri of any type.

I did manage to try some fish in the end in the form of aburi salmon uramaki, while it wasn't the best I've had elsewhere, it definitely was the best I've had at the store that day.

Perhaps feeling a little sorry for us, the server came and told us that we may order "mini rice bowls" without extra charge. These were worth 6 dollars and we gladly ordered one each. My girlfriend had the aburi salmon rice bowl and I had the teriyaki chicken rice bowl. While the meat was hot and freshly cooked, the texture wasn't favourable and the flavour was bland. The rice was warm but hard and stale.

Counting the bowls, plates and the 2 drinks, our total came close to but just short of the "50 dollars" we paid upfront.

I guess, while it wasn't the worst experience, the entirety of the experience was simply disappointing.

Nothing really stood out to me as "bad" at the store but everything a little bland, stale, a little short. I will personally never visit again and it's honestly pretty hard to recommend to someone after the same "all you can eat" deal. Although if you don't take the deal and order fresh nigiri, the experience may have been different but I...

2nd Place Prize... for Worst Sushi Train (In Depth Review, below)

We probably should have checked the existing reviews before we came for the $25 afternoon all you can eat sushi deal.

Expecting congestion, we arrived at 2pm sharp and were seated promptly. An fairly critical problem revealed itself instantly. There was close to no sushi on the sushi train, despite the seats being half full.

What was there was basically a couple plates of crabstick nigiri and a plate of deep fried prawn nigiri (turned out to be quite stale).

The friendly staff explained that we could order unlimited entree items, and one noodle dish, one drink and one dessert per person.

We ordered a few deep fried items; the deep frying oil is likely stale, and the batter is much too hard. Soft Shell Crab, Prawn Parcel, Tempura were all terrible. Takoyaki, Chicken Karaage and Octopus Karaage are surprisingly edible.

The udon was very standard with a normal dashi broth, but the ramen was clearly packet ramen (hard to expect more though).

All orders took a very long time.

Highlights included an above average dessert menu - green tea ice cream was strong and smooth, and the mochi tasted fresh with good texture. However the creme brulee was more like flavourless and stiff chawan-mushi.

The house sake was also quite good for beginners, smooth and sweet.

When we were more or less finished, the sushi started coming out at a good rate. The quality was acceptable, but with some somewhat inauthentic flavour combinations and stuffed with as much rice as possible to get you out the door sooner.

It is quite absurd that we were asked to pay $3.50 for the "wastage" - leftover hard batter and inedible fried items, as if the staff actually thought that the food was of an acceptable grade.

The few good points are unable to overcome the inefficient service and general poor quality of the food, but at least it's not the worst sushi train...