888 Taste Show Asian Cuisine — Restaurant in Sofia City

The restaurant isn't super authentic, but it's good overall. We ate here twice due to convenience. The first visit the service was great and we left a tip. However our second visit was much different… Initially, a waiter snapped at us and told us as we didn’t have a reservation it was fully booked, so I then asked him for a takeaway menu and he told me to wait and walked away to attend other tables. I then asked another staff member for a takeaway menu and he promptly pointed at an empty table and seated us at a table for two. As an owner of a restaurant myself, I would have been disappointed to see the other waiter turning perfectly feasible business away. Hospitality is a stressful environment so I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. But he had an attitude that suggested, "This is just a job; I don’t care, I just want my salary." Due to my irritation I kept an eye on this rude waiter and noticed behaviour that raised concerns—being overly friendly and hugging a takeaway customer or two, of course all cash transactions, and spending far too much time fiddling with the till. FOR THE BENEFIT OF MANAGEMENT, this occurred around 8-9PM on the 30th of November. Having experienced the problem of sweethearting and theft in my own restaurant, it was quick to spot. I didn’t bother to catch his name, as I am on holiday plus trying to switch off as this is an issue for management to address, not me!

As for the food, the ramen is a probably a miss—bland, salty broth and non-fresh noodles. The black cod was surprisingly underwhelming, seemingly missing the miso dressing.

On the bright side, the yakitori is 5 ⭐️, really outstanding and worth ordering a couple of portions, and the foie gras was excellent, with a generous portion. Sushi earns a solid 4 stars. Mixed experience, but some highlights make it worth a visit if you are staying...

The restaurant itself is beautiful and definitely has a nice atmosphere. The glassware and utensils are of great quality. The only thing that was not on par was the use of lower grade disposable chopsticks, which admittedly are a standard locally, but nevertheless added a cheap feeling to the otherwise luxurious setting.

The sushi was nice, fresh and well-made. As far as other kinds of food (soups and starters) though, authenticity, taste and presentation could definitely be worked on- for a restaurant in the seemingly high-end range this was a bit underwhelming.

The hostess and waiters were helpful, polite and well-trained. Although they did their best, their workflow still seemed a bit chaotic. We had multiple waiters during our 1-hr dinner and when leaving, we had to wait a while for our coats to be brought out since there was no one at the cloakroom. They did make our dessert complimentary though, since it was served late and we were already paying the bill after a longer-than-expected wait.

All in all, the restaurant is a work in progress with...

The restaurant has a great location, the interior is very nice and the staff were incredibly polite and helpful. We paid a bit over 50 BGN per person, but we ate a looot of things, including fish and seafood, so the price is worth it. Overall the feeling of the place is great, but the taste of the food was a bit lacking. The presentation of the dishes was beautiful, but regarding taste...

On the negative side - the jasmin rice was very dry, the red curry with shrimps was a bit watery, I guess it had too much coconut milk, the gyoza was dry with too little filling and thick skin and the sushi had too much lemon zest over it so the taste of the citrus was beating the taste of the fish, the green tea ice cream tasted nothing like green tea.

On the good side, the okonomiyaki was surpringly tasty, even though not the most traditional, and also the spicy prawns were great, the gyoza sauce was super good and very authentic Japanese, sake was nice and finally the miso caramel ice...