Doraku — Restaurant in Dartmouth

I would 100% recommend this sushi place to EVERYONE. Amazing spot for a personable dinner or date.

Food: It’s hard to find a sushi restaurant in HRM that cooks rice as perfectly as they do (not mushy, not hard) and serves the sushi slightly warm

They actually serve other things than sushi!! Try the curry rice or onigiri (rice ball), just like my mum used to make it 😌

The unagidon is what I normally get because the BBQ eel is just sweet and salty enough, I could eat bowl after bowl. (Like an explosion in your mouth💥)

You can tell so much care in preparation goes into making each meal. All their sushi is great, I like with unagi maki and inari (sweet bean curd with rice) a variety of sashimi is good too.

For anything fried, their batter is on the lighter end unlike other places in HRM. I find this nicer because you don’t feel like you have a rock in your stomach after eating.

Service & interior: The interior design is incredibly thoughtful and comforting for a small restaurant. It features modern minimalism with traditional Japanese elements and natural wood. (It is also very clean)

The staff are very kind and competent. Erika and Shuji I think are their names, both incredibly sweet and smiley.

If you are a larger party, call a day or two beforehand and book because they only have a small bar (seats about 5-6) and three tables (seats about 4-5). Also they get a pretty busy takeout rush around dinner time so maybe go there for lunch or a 7pm dinner (or call and ask)

Side note: Plum wine is an aperitif usually taken before or with a meal but I personally prefer it as desert afterwards (since it’s quite sweet and tart) and have brown rice tea with the meal. (brown rice tea has more depth of flavour than green tea, and less...

Very very very very bad experience in this restaurant. The server only serve customers who are natives, and ignore us. The worse is they even skip us and ask the next couple of customers who are Caucasian obversely if they have reserved or something else , but nobody care about us. IT IS SERIOUS RACISM!!! This kind of Japanese restaurant will not only influence customer experience, even influence experience stay in Halifax even Canada. The servers two Japanese girls. Really really bad experience consumption.

Reply：Hello, Doraku’s owner. I am glad that you took notice of my feedback as someone who is not of a white racial background. This proves that the actions of your two Japanese female servers do not necessarily reflect your values or those of Doraku, so perhaps this isn’t the standard of your restaurant. However, I don’t think that simply trusting your employees or the fact that they have worked in your restaurant for over a year or even two can prove that they wouldn’t behave in this way. I feel your response was not very objective. As a customer, I chose to dine at Doraku because I once appreciated the quality of your food, not because I intended to criticize your two Japanese female employees. I hope that, as the owner of Doraku, you can handle this matter fairly and...

This is hands down the best Sushi I've ever had. The restaurant is small, a little cramped when busy but the staff are very friendly and knowledgeable and clearly care about their work and the food they make.it was fresh, flavorful and best of all; filling. I ordered the maki set with salmon and tuna avocado roll, an extra order of Unagi rolls, and black sesame mochi for dessert coming to a total of 29 dollars.

The food was extremely tasty, the miso soup was rich with large tofu cubes with generous amounts of green onion and veggies. The rolls were absolutely perfect. The rice was cooked just right and packed with flavor, the fish was extremely fresh, cut perfectly with no grissle or fat. The unagi rolls hit the perfect balance of savory and sweet that's hard to find. The mochi was positively amazing! the bean paste filling was sweet with a hint of savory, the mochi dough was soft and springy without being overly chewey, and the black sesame seeds complimented the flavor of both excellently.

I cannot recommend this restaurant enough, i encourage anyone looking for good food and fair prices make a reservation and...