Warakuya Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Johor

SCAM ALERT!! Terrible service and dishonest pricing

Extremely disappointing visit. Reserved for 8pax two weeks in advance, did not ask for private room but they gave us the private room upstairs without asking and informed us minimum spending is 500RM. I’ve tried their omakase last year and it was 100+RM/pax for 6-7 customized dishes so I brought more friends to try it out this time. We wanted to order omakase set separately based on our own tastes but the waiter insisted that we merge our budget to get a group omakase as the portions will be bigger and more worth it since chef has more to work with. We agreed on a budget of 800RM for 4pax with the expectation that it would be more than what I experienced last year. The waiter told us the sashimi omakase platter would take 50min, while the other omakase dishes would take 60min. 1.5hrs passed and we did not receive any of the food promised. The waiter and waitress kept running off everytime we tried to ask them about the food. Only after we looked for the store manager, he told us the Vietnamese waiters were just “helpers”. After almost 2 hours we started getting our food, but portion was pathetic. Each of us only got one piece of 4 types of sashimi(all available on the menu as ala carte), and TWO tiny spoons of chef curated dish to share among FOUR of us. Complained to the manager again but they said the waiter misunderstood our order but no form of compensation was given. After another long wait, they served us a FRUIT PLATTER(just some cheap fruits btw) as the second dish for our omakase. Another long wait and several complaints later, they served us a spoon of wagyu wrapped in uni, and told us we are almost done with the 800 omakase, and there was only one final dish left. The store manager Jin Chun started giving reasons like “usually they put 8g of a certain ingredient, but they gave us 10g” sort of reasoning that could not be backed up by anything, as he said omakase is off the menu so we cannot compare price. But he also said their prices have been the same since 2019, so I showed them what I ate last year which was at least 10 times more than what they served this round. He couldn’t really explain but said maybe the fish used looks similar but isn’t exactly the same. It was a total scam. Saw other reviews saying VIP rooms have been falling victim to such scams at their shop since 6 months ago so beware! Seems like they’re doing it on purpose to big groups esp Singaporeans. We refused to pay the full 800 and finally settled on 300 but it wasted us so much time to argue with them on an empty stomach until 11+pm. Picture comparison of what I received last year for 100RM vs 800...

SPECIAL WARNING TO ALL SINGAPOREAN CUSTOMER

I was a strong supporter to Warakuya and had been promoting for the restaurant for years; always introducing my Singaporean friends to try the restaurant.... until yesterday evening.

Warakuya has been a disappointment for several times already. Yesterday was my last straw.

To Management of Warakuya, please STOP your deliberate upsell method. Customer have to wait for a long time to get a table and after all the waiting, and finally seated, do you really want to milk your loyal customer by telling them (almost) all the sashimi on your menu is out of stock but customer can still order the premium sashimi.

Look, Mekajiki are frozen goods and a pretty common and standard fish in any Japanese restaurant. When you guys told me "Sorry we ran out of stock, but we have Mekajiki Premium if you want.", I frowned instantly and moved on to my next item order, Amaebi. And you waiter did the exact same thing to me again. Same applied for my Uni order.

At last, I have to settle for just the Premium Uni and the rest of the standard cook food which I am totally not keen to eat, just to fill my stomach because I waited half an hour outside your restaurant for a seat.

The whole experience is darn obvious, that Warakuya staffs are train to upsell customer. It's not only irritating, it's not tastefully done so I was so disturbed and irritated when you waiter did that multiple times on me.

Not to mention, I was given a bar counter seat and your serving staff came and just anyhow leave my food on the table without consideration how I can reach the food. i know the restaurant is busy and popular, but you really need to upgrade and train your serving staff. Have some class when serving the dishes.

Near to the end of my dinner, here come your female customer service or cashier staff to promote your membership. Another sign of upselling.

Seriously, your business is doing very well, please look at how you can better your service standard, how the kitchen should better ration your ingredients, rather than how to upsell your customer. Business will continue to knock on your door if you upkeep your business well and price yourself better. What's the point of losing loyal customer while you recruit new ones? It's pointless in my opinion. I am sure most business want sustainable business model.

I am not a petty spender, but too bad.... you lost me. I will never come back to your restaurant again and i will not promote for you anymore. It probably will spoil my reputation to ask my friends to come...

This is my third Warakuya branch I’ve been to in JB in the last 3 months. I’ve been to the Masai and Skudai one as well.

This branch has the worse quality of food and standard (food) amongst the 3, so if you think this is good, I feel the Masai branch food (and sashimi) quality is even better.

Went in the mid afternoon last Saturday, got ushered quite fast.

They were out of salmon belly sashimi, but if we order a whole/half fish of salmon sashimi, they do have the belly, according to the staff. Not sure if it’s marketing tactic to push fish out faster for higher sales, or they’re saving the individual portions for Saturday dinner crowd - we did see lots of alcohol bottles opened by customers with 6 months validity (we were seated near the entrance beside the shelves of their bottles).

Anyway, since we ordered 4 servings of regular salmon sashimi, the staff suggested we get a half or whole fish for a better deal and price. We decided to try that instead - but when it came it was not salmon, it’s some croaker fish I think. Think this was just an accidental miscommunication on the staff’s part as when staff suggested a half/whole fish for better deal, we assumed it was also salmon and not another fish. Would be best to double check before confirming the order, as once they serve the fish, they can’t take it back, which resulted in a disagreement between us and staff, as we didn’t want another fish. They did, eventually, take back some of the other fish and replaced it with the salmon sashimi instead, which came faster than usual (they usually take awhile to serve the sashimis).

The colour of the salmon sashimi was off, and not fresh (see first pic where I dragged my chopstick along the fish and the marks were just sitting there).

Scallop sashimi was so thin I could see my black chopstick through it.

First branch that had foie gras, though! It was good and fat. Will order again.

Cha soba at this branch was soso, the texture is the same as the other branches, springy, but the noodles weren’t cold and the tempura was not as generous as the other 2 branches.

Chawanmushi was okay, will order again.

All in all, will recommend the Masai branch, then the Skudai one and then pelangi branch last as the sashimi standards is best at Masai, tho when we went, they were out of Uni and foie gras.

All three branches have staff who are very attentive. Sashimi presentation also good among all branches. Will definitely return but will head to another branch for sashimi and the...