Ikigai - The Dumpling Experience — Restaurant in Municipality of Thessaloniki

Update: I decided to change it to a very low 2, as they decided to add a bit of veal broth to my vegan fusion broth, testing to see if I would notice. I did. Whilst the tomato broth was a nice and flavorful addition, for a vegan like me, the veal broth was a violation of my lifestyle choice.

I recommend any and all vegans to steer clear of this facility. In fact, I recommend if anyone is in the Virginia Beach area and is a Vegan, to stop by Misako instead. They have very good ramen, hospitality, and service; and are very conscious of both lifestyle and allergenic preferences.

As for this place, if you're not vegan and happen to consider the ramen, consider something else. I'll post a photo of my noodles that I requested to be added, and you'll see that it's basic packet ramen you can buy in the store for less than €1. Just add your own veggies and whatever leftover meat you have, and you've got basically what you'd get here.

Cheers! :)

Prior to this: So far I am ranking this place a low 3, given that I was attempting to customize my soup and was told that there was beef mixed into the fusion vegetable broth, which is not stated on the website.

I kindly let the server know that no, fusion vegetable broth is simply a fusion (mixture) of vegetables that make up the broth. In fact, soup is often made from this, and when you take out the vegetables, a delightful flavorful vegan broth is leftover.

I also made sure to clarify that they were not going to accidentally give me the veal broth that is stated on their website, were they? He stated no; so I shall update this review if I believe that veal broth has indeed been added to my vegan broth; as their website does not state beef is mixed into it.

I have provided screenshots to show what the website's menu currently reflects, as well as what the definition of fusion vegetable soup is (which again, is where the broth itself is derived from, giving you a lovely vegetable fusion broth, which is purely...

Overall a meh experience. Was a bit weird considering all the positive reviews, maybe we came at a rough time for the restaurant, but honestly where do i start.

The server had no idea what the menu consisted of and had no idea what to suggest like it was his first day here. We sat down and the server was polite at the start and then after that it all went downhill. For starters we wanted to order a soju to drink and asked for the flavours they had. As mentioned the server was completely lost and kept suggesting mango flavour followed by I don’t know what else we had so we just left it up to him and he reasonably went and picked the easiest option (mango). We also asked for some sauce pairings for the dumplings which he again said yeah I don’t know what sauces we have.

The food came and the spring rolls were decent. Then the dumplings seemed to be a bit undercooked and honestly i gave up halfway through eating them since the meat looked a bit raw for me and the dough was incredibly chewy and undercooked.

The atmosphere was alright it was very quiet and also there were some free spots available to sit outside if you are a smoker.

Overall as mentioned it was a meh experience, wouldn’t really recommend bothering to come over here when better restaurants with more traditional food exists. Seemed as a very much of a...

Given that I ordered from Walt not in this restaurant so there is no service or atmosphere, for that I put one star each as there is no option for me to skip. It doesn’t mean it’s bad performance in the restaurant. *FYI, Walt delivery was on time and good.

Yellow curry with chicken (€12.5) was well cooked, though not much chicken chunks inside and all slim stripes mixed with veggies, the rice was moisture not dry basmati, which is rare in the market, so bravo for the rice and the flavour of curry. However, the packaging was poorly made thus it dripped everywhere on the package and in the bag. To avoid messy situation at home, you must clean it a bit before having it ready to eat.

In contrast, shrimp and pork dumplings with chill sauce came with 5 dumplings per serving (about €9) were perfectly packaged. Moreover, surprisingly the dumpling skin was thin while inside was well stuffed, probably the best dumpling performance in Thessaloniki so far.

Coleslaw salad (about €7), on the other hand, was quite disappointingly tasteless but with descent portion at least.

Somehow expensive for Thessaloniki but the flavour is acceptable. I probably would order again and try also...