SUSHI ROYAL TOKYO — Restaurant in Antwerp

A mixed bag.

First off: the best tuna sashimi I've ever had. Thick, flavourful slices. I'm usually not a fan of tuna in raw form, so that's saying something.

I was excited for this meal, after reading the many wonderful reviews. And I genuinely think this restaurant could be fantastic, if they hired an extra server and fine-tuned their preparation process.

But as it stands, a variety of other factors made our experience not-so-great, and gave us the feeling that service here is rather uneven.

The restaurant space was cold, both in appearance and temperature. The chefs looked stern. It took a long time for someone to come take our order, and even longer for our food to come out. We were seated at 20:00 and received our food at 21:15.

A couple that arrived ten minutes after us, had their order taken first for some reason, and were also served first. They ordered the same dish we did, and had nearly finished by the time we got our food. Deliveroo and Take-Away orders went out while we waited. But who knows how long those people had been waiting; Take-Away reviews note up to 2 hour waiting times.

Surrounding tables were left uncleared for an hour at a time. Ours was set with dirty pairs of chopsticks. The waitress was lovely and friendly, but she seemed overwhelmed, even though the restaurant was barely half-full the entire time we were there.

We ordered their standard sashimi and sushi platter for two people. The tuna sashimi was wonderful, as was the roll with grilled salmon on top. And the dish looked visually stunning. But that's where the good part of the meal ended. The salmon sashimi was so icy cold that we couldn't taste its flavour. Everything else was rather bland, except for the miso soup, which was too salty for a miso soup. Pieces of sushi would fall apart when we would go to pick them up. There were deep-fried sushis on the platter, which were thoroughly cooled by the time we received them.

I later discovered why, when we went to pay and saw large platters of already cut deep-fried sushis sitting out. A small child was sat right next to them, picking her nose and eating her boogers with conviction. I think she was having the best time out of everyone present :)

We paid €50 for this dish, 59 pieces of sushi. If you think that's good value, you should go. But I'm used to paying €50 for 48 pieces at my favourite place 🤷 I don't think the extra pieces made up for the downsides.

Maybe this place should focus on take-away only, or restaurant only? As it stands, the whole experience made me feel like we must have gone on the worst possible day. Maybe go earlier in the day, and not on a weekend day,...

We have been ordering delivery several times in this restaurant in the last year and it was normally OK. During the lock-down, the delivery is completely unreliable though. I of course understand the high demand but the problem is that you get app messages that the food was delivered but in fact it was not! We then have to call them and wait at least 30-40 minutes extra to get the food. The last time, they simply didn't answer the phone at all after several trials. I'm inquiring on the app to get back my money since we now have to pay in advance via credit card.

update: the app never answered us (takeaway) neither owners, nor app allowed us to cancel the order. delivery took 2:30h after insisting badly with owners (and 1:30h after app said delivery was completed). Food taste was very bad. It seems it was prepared hours in advance, not...

This place deserves a 5 star for their amazing food, service and ambiance.

The service is amazing. They make you feel so nice and make sure everything is fine for you.

The food is top class and served very well. It’s not even expensive.

You get complimentary chips fried in fish oil made of rice(I guess) as soon as you sit down and then they take the order.

My friend was vegetarian and I wasn’t and we wanted to order just one starter. They made 3 veg gyoza and 3 meat once and served it as 1 plate. (Extraordinary)

Make sure you visit this beautiful place....