Musashi IFSC Sushi & Cocktail Bar — Restaurant in Dublin

Came here for a late lunch during the week so it wasn't busy at all. The service was good, our server was very friendly and attentive.

I had a bento box lunch special consisting of sushi, salad, teriyaki chicken and rice and a bowl of miso soup for just under 10euro. The two pieces of sushi that came with it were rolls with crab sticks which were somewhat bland, it would have been nice if they gave ones with fish or gave two different pieces but for a lunch special it's understandable. The miso soup was quite flavoursome with plenty of seaweed and tofu cubes. The teriyaki chicken and rice was good although it tasted more Chinese than Japanese, it was a decent sized portion and the flavour was balanced, not overly sweet and had plenty of fresh stir fried veg but a bit on the oily side. The chicken pieces were battered and fried similar to Cantonese-style chicken but the batter was a little too thick and subsequently doughy (needs either a thinner layer of batter or else double-fried to prevent stodginess). The salad was lovely with a good zingy dressing. I had the gyoza which were very good, well seasoned and juicy filling, thin soft gyoza skin fried crispy in the right places.

My partner had the yakisoba, also from lunch special menu which came in a big portion with plenty of meat. Flavour was OK, a bit bland for our tastes.

Oddly, towards the end of our meal there was some commotion upstairs with some staff members, sounded like a heated argument. Our server was good about it, embarrassed and very apologetic about the noise coming from her colleagues. This event is not taken into consideration for the rating I'm giving now, since it's not a reflection of the food and actual service I received.

Overall, not a bad spot for lunch if you're in the area. Lunch special is good value. I would like to come back to try their sushi properly and write another review. Dublin still has a long way to go with decent Japanese food....

Nice enough. Lighting is too dim as we couldn't figure out if their open or not. Could do with redecorating to put some life back into the place, hence my score. Otherwise food is tasty from the various dishes we tried as a group.

Seabass was of generous portion, got the whole fish as in 2 fillets rather than one small piece of fillet, so on that front it's very cost effective for the amount of food being provided. They have a cocktail deal with main for 20 euros. The staff were attentive, with efficient table service and friendly enough to ask questions regarding their dishes. Their menu could be improved as it's not logical as even the staff couldn't figure out which order the menu starts and finishes when asked. Needs to be improved to help those who are sushi newbies as description of each dish could be better. Cocktail choices, the lychee one as well as the one with midori were absolutely tasty. Could have had more if it wasn't a "school night". Photo showing the midori containing cocktail. Would say that it's not too expensive considering this is in Dublin and a short walk from the convention centre. Not much of an ambience or atmosphere but that didn't matter as we were there as a group and we focused on trying the tasty prawn gyoza (steamed version) and each of...

I’ve tried this Musashi again for lunch after a few years. I remember it being very good back then, and was looking forward to my lunch due to the good 4.5 reviews.

Unfortunately, today’s katsu curry was very disappointing: the chicken cutlet didn’t seem fresh at all with a hard texture, the curry sauce tasted quite bland and overly salty, and strangely and comically, the portion of over-cooked rice was perhaps half of what you normally get at most Japanese restaurants in Dublin (the photo below doesn’t show this properly - can’t believe they’d serve such a small portion of rice). Worst katsu curry I had in years.

They also got my wakame salad order wrong, and gave me a different type of seaweed, which then they corrected after I pointed this out.

Overall, given my recent experience at Musashi restaurants, I would not recommend eating there anymore - except for the new Blackrock branch, which is mostly alright. There are much nicer competitors around with much better food quality and value. Left feeling hungry and a 16.45 euro bill with just a short “sorry” apology...