KAIYŌ — Restaurant in Kowloon

Was looking around to find a new Japanese restaurant and Kaiyo in K11 Musea on Openrice and was genuinely surprised the price rating wasnt through the roof. When we got there we were greeted at the door with a few bangs on the taiko drum which at first I thought was pretty neat, but grew old very fast and downright annoying towards the end of the dinner. kept getting interrupted by the loud banging of the drums. We ordered a Japanese tomato for appetizer, deluxe sushi platter and a few skewers to start off first, expecting the food to arrive in the order from chilled to hot too, but to our surprise, the skewers were the first to arrive, then the tomato second, and had to wait 30 mins for the sushi. We had to chase our order after waiting unusually long for it and still took another 10 mins for it to arrive. We finished off the meal with a bowl of chasiu ramen and we're both satisfied.

The food was not bad, didnt really wow us and wasnt expecting it to, The price of our bill reflects the quality and location but the service could of been a little bit better. They seemed like they are understaffed as I could see only 1 or 2 wait staff for the entire floor of the restaurant a lot of the times. When I do see one staff walking by I tried to wave him down but he just walked right passed us without acknowledging us or saying anything and thought...

It has been about a year since we last visited and, unfortunately, the food and service quality has gone down quite a fair bit - it seems the culture in the restaurant is rushed - perhaps a shot of patience and focus is needed both in the kitchen and front-of-house.

The soft-shelled crab hand roll tasted good, however it seemed haphazardly put together: the tobiko wasn't even meticulously place on the roll. The dan-dan ramen wasn't very spicy and was stingy on the peanut for this to be accurately called "dan-dan" at all. The tsukune was it's only redeeming factor: enough cartilage in the mince for a proper mouthfeel. The tempura-don was a let down - the tempura was inconsistent with some parts chewy and uncooked, and the rice was lacklustre. Furthermore, the tempura was not served with its sauce - and we had to call the waiter twice: once for the tentsuyu and again for the grated daikon. For a busy restaurant, it seemed understaffed with at most only 3 noticeable waiters in the front-of-house at any given time, with one of them usually carrying a truck load of food from the kitchen.

Japanese fare - and especially for a casual restaurant in a premium location - ought to be handled with focus and precision, something at seemed amiss from service to kitchen. Perhaps the taiko drum would be better placed in the kitchen to keep the...

“No time to die” 16:00 @ K11 Musea, reserved Kaiyo for afternoon drink before movie. Arrived 14:00 😱 lunch crowd still full, almost wanna change mind, but new restaurant, want to try! It’s sister shop next to Velo Italian, advertised to be first rate….. Greeted at front, not the expected friendly welcome, busy checking my reservation, found, first word out of her mouth was you have 90 minutes. Tables were almost full, I demanded to sit at the sushi bar, less popular area, little more precious space for us! Order a bottle of sauvignon blanc and few Yakitori. Wine was not bad for the price, especially in an high rent mall. Skewers were serving 1 by 1, good presentation and tasty, we started to relax over wine & snack. Sushi chefs were busy serving & preparing right in front of us, I have to give credit, professional & neat 👍 Food was good, grilled sushi were tasty, everything was good except overall services, not what I expected in a up scale mall, but perhaps it’s holiday and a little under staff! In countless choices of Japanese restaurant in HK, this place a 3 out of 5 stars. I like the location, hope they fine tweak the operation, it will be...