Akayu Portlaoise — Restaurant in The Municipal District of Portlaoise

It is baffling to me how this place has such high ratings. I ordered a Thai RED curry recently. What arrived was not what I asked for. For a start, it was green and did not look appetising or taste good for that matter. I certainly tried more than once!! It was the colour of when you have a bad cold. I called them and advised that I ordered a Thai red curry amd must has received the incorrect dish. They agreed to amend my order and deliver a Thai red curry to my address. I insisted on giving them back the one that they gave me. Imagine my horror to open and once again see the sad, mucous looking mess that I had just handed back?!! It went straight into the bin, lesson learned. They seem to get good reviews for their sushi, perhaps stick to what you know and do not try to improvise outside of your comfort zone.

Edit: How you could justify what you redelivered as up to standard when it was the exact same, incorrect dish that you gave me in the first place?! To be honest, had you advised me on the phone that the kitchen was closing, I would have gladly accepted a refund and gave you back the inedible, incorrect, disappointing dish that was presented to me. However, you never gave me that option. How you could be happy sending out a dish like that is beyond me, not once but twice?! However, your comment about being happy that you have regular customers puts things into perspective. You do not seem to want new customers. I find this strange for a business. Have a...

A mixed bag. The Goza came out as our starter and it was delicious, small portion but they were filled.

I’d had a teriyaki dish which was delicious and my partner had sushi bento and we had some extra sushi as well.

The sushi had this strange sauce on it which looked like mayonnaise but was very sweet. Sadly it made all the sushi taste it had an extremely strong flavour and made all the sushi taste exactly the same. Even soy sausage and wasabi was overpowered by the sweet flavour.

We ended up resorting to trying to wipe the it off with out napkins and drowning the sushi in soy sauce.

I would highly recommend to anyone eating here you ask them not to put this sauce on the sushi as it will ruin it.

If it weren’t for this I think it would have been lovely.

We had Mochi for desert and this tastes like the frozen Aldi stuff. Texture was extremely grainy and unpleasant. Our local sushi place makes it fresh and so this stood out in start comparison.

Service was good, one lad had just started but was polite and helpful.

The atmosphere was pleasant and we had a nice evening.

If it wasn’t for the sauce this would have been a 5 star review and I only mentioned the mochi cause I was disappointed with the sushi. Would still recommend but under the conditions...

While some of the staff is very friendly and courteous (especially the purple haired guy, you know yourself), the food we were served was disgraceful.

We ordered two sushi platters and not only was the selection as lacklustre as it can be, but everything tasted like it came out of a box. Quite shockingly, the sushi was drizzled with some translucent mayonnaise, the rice was overcooked (which is appalling, considering this is sushi rice we are talking about), and the tuna and prawn on the nigiri had absolutely no flavour. I had to use soy sauce to appeal to whatever semblance of a palate I had left untarnished after trying the sushi. I have genuinely eaten much better sushi purchased from Dunnes Stores, which should tell you what to expect if you’ve had the pleasure of trying authentic East Asian food before.

As of now, Akayu has a 4.7 star average review score on Google. It seems as though the establishment is counting on the fact that there are no alternatives available in County Laois.

Also, something I found funny was that there was a trail of ants on the mini counter housing plants behind the front window. Make of that what you will.

Needless to say, we will not be returning to Akayu...