Japanika — Restaurant in Budapest

We went to Japanika on a Friday night without a reservation, it was busy but not too crazy at all. After being seated and ordering our drinks it took about 15 minutes (2 drinks!) for them to arrive. We ordered the Elderflower Spritz (there was a Margarita on the bill though) and the Singapore Sling which were way too sweet, tasted pretty much just like booze and didn’t show any sophistication at all nor any of the characteristics as described on the menu. That wasn’t too horrible for us because we assumed we couldn’t expect any high quality drinks at a restaurant like this one, even though they were promoted that way. After that it took about another 15-20 minutes for the waitress to finally notice us and take our food order. We went for three different kinds of their specialty rolls (24pcs overall). So at this point we already spent about 30-40 minutes just to get 2 drinks and order some sushi. We waited for about 40 more minutes until we finally asked the very inattentive and hard to reach waitress if there was any problem with our order. We were wondering because the table next to us also waited for a very long time but arrived after us and was already on their main course. So it finally took about an hour and 10 minutes for our food to arrive. At this point we were just really happy to have something to eat but unfortunately got disappointed right away because the specialty rolls were nothing more than mediocre at the best, were way to large and not rolled tight enough so that they fell apart even before they could be eaten. Of course it took another 15 minutes to finally get our check of 16.000 HUF for two drinks and no appetizers. Overall we spent nearly the whole evening there waiting with some okay drinks to finally get some mediocre sushi, accompanied by very bad service. Unfortunately I cannot speak out a recommendation for...

I was reading the menu outside when the waitress came out. I said I'm hesitating because I am gluten intolerant. She told me that everything could be made gluten-free and convinced me to come in. The staff was smiling but apparently not trained well (eventhough the restaurant was almost empty, they were not attentive to all the tables, they forgot orders, I had to stand up to ask for the bill...). I said to the waitress serving me I'm gluten intolerant and chose my dish accordingly. They brought me a side dish salad without any sauce, just dry letuce and tomatoes. When I asked, she told me there is gluten in the sauce. However, instead of explaining it to me when bringing the salad and proposing an alternative, I had to ask for olive oil and salt myself. She brought me the equivalent of 4 tea spoons of olive oil and gluten-free soya sauce (never tried that mix with green salad...). When ordering coffee and dessert, I asked if they had any gluten-free dessert. She told me she would ask to the chef. After 5min, she brings me the coffee (I ordered a capuccino but she served me a coffe with milk and no foam) and is about to leave. I ask her again about the dessert (apparently she had forgotten). She asks the chef and comes back to me and says there is no dessert for me. Regarding open-kitchen: concept is good but the cook was wearing gloves (which are supposed to protect the food from bacterias) and he was touching his face/mouth/nose and then the food with the same gloves.

Overall: food is not bad, I liked the red curry/cashew chicken. But service efficiency and quality needs to...

The food was actually really good. The problem is that we got the wrong order. Honestly, by the time we got the food my partner and I had already forgotten what we had ordered. We were confused because we weren't sure if that was our order, but sounded similar. It had similar ingredients so we thought it was right. Later on, when we had eaten almost half the order, a waiter came to tell us we had the wrong order, and we said "ahh that's why we were confused." When we paid they charged us what we ate (which was more expensive than what we originally ordered) and when we asked the waiter, he reacted extremely rude and said "then, why didn't you say anything when you realized? You said you realized!". We replied "we said we were confused." He replied again "you realized, why didn't you say anything?" At that point he was almost yelling and making a scene. It was quite embarrasing. Eventually he gave up, she shut the receipt book on the table and left madly. At the end we paid for what we originally ordered, but we felt accused by the waiter. They could have come immediatly after they brought the order. But they realized way too late. He was too busy chitchatting with...