Sakura just feels like it wants to become an expensive gourmet restaurant while cramping in more people than a McDonalds near a railway station. This used to be the best japanese Restaurant in Halle (Saale) but it is not what it used to be a few months back, right now the japanese cuisine they have is basically just sushi. They used to have amazing Ramen, which was definitly enough for one person but also the price to food ratio made sense. They also had a variety of other dishes available (Don for example). The first thing you have to know if you want to eat here is that you will have to bring alot of money, even if you are not eating sushi and one of the few rice based dishes they have you will almost all the time spend over 20 euroes, esspecially as the main dish is not that much. It was okay for me, but I never really eat large portions. Now the food itself is incredible good, mine was a bit too dry for my taste (I had chicken and thai rice), but that might just be me. The sushi itself is great too, the sushi bar in the second floor of the restaurant is amazing, there are ships swimming around with sushi on them and you just take whatever comes your way. In the middle is the open kitchen which is very entertaining to watch. Both the cooks and the waiters themselves are very nice, immediatly at your place whenever you need something and while they are not perhaps directly understaffed they certainly had their hands full. The sushi is great, however not that good that they could charge for it what they do. A couple next to me had once payed 100 euroes for what they ate, and yes while they did eat more than the average human would even if you just eat until you are barely full you still have to expect to pay something around 40 euroes. Which in my book is simply too much. Esspecially because of how crowded the place is. I personally do not mind that they just shove in as many people as they can fit. However what I do mind is that if I called them before asking to reserve a place and then there is no actual space for me to sit. In general esspecially with the pricing having gone up it just feels like they are trying to fit in as many people as they can while also trying to be a gourmet restaurant. Those two do not fit together, they want to keep the appearance up for the normal people, trying to get them to come but the price for that is too high, so they try to be a more high class place but for that they are just cramming you up in there.