Amatsu — Restaurant in Ghent

Atmosphere is ok. Waiters are professional. But for me food quality and taste makes the review, so: we took a sushi menu (the one with nigiri). the nigiri themselves were ok, not spectacularly fresh but at least with some less banal kinds of fish (though one with surf shell clam had some sand creaks). Everything else was actually bad. Starting with a entre algae, eggplant and a very bad "caramelized" small octopus. A sider of pickles (bad) and some undefined sweetish vegetable (also bad). Miso soup was good. Green tea ice cream has always the same taste even in cheap chinese restaurants. With half bottle of wine we paid more than 100 euros. Frankly I really don't understand all the hype about the place. (Michelin suggestion??? Mah) Bottom line: if you have a truly fresh fish, anyone, just boil it and it will taste superb. If you have an old octopus it's not gonna taste any good even if you...

Probably the most authentic Japanese place in Gent (especially in terms of presentation and atmosphere). But that's because in the land of the blind, the one eyed is king.

When the food arrives, it becomes quickly obvious this is not real Japanese. As a telling example, tempura look their typical Belgian smooth coated vegetables, instead of the very distinguishable fluffy coated shape they're supposed to have. The food isn't bad (certainly not!), but fails to be really Japanese, which is a disappointment, especially considering the very Japanese price tag we're paying.

5 stars for trying to be authentic -1 for failing at it, food wise -1 for the high price = 3 stars; but I'll make it 3,5 stars anyway because the owner seems like...

Unfortunately it was quite disappointing, even though I was super excited in advance. I ordered the degustation menu with sake-selection and whereas the fish was of very good quality, for me it was not worth the money (130 euro pp). Whereas usually in a restaurant like this a sommelier explains the wine, here you were given the sake-menu and the waitress simply pointed at the one you got without any further explanation. Next to that, the tempura dish arrived cold&soggy, the service was slow (we had to wait for the bill for 20 minutes) and again the food was good but not extraordinary. For the price I had expected...