Hagi Japanese Cuisine — Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur

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Wanted to book for other restaurants on the same row but unfortunately they were all fully booked, so we went to Hagi instead. The entire area was so terrible for parking! Very limited parking space and road was narrow🥲

The ambience of the restaurant is very chill and cozy and dining area is spacious. Staff service was great throughout our meal there, very attentive and accomodating. Food (ala-carte) was average and overpriced though.

The first thing they promoted was the festive omakase meal priced at MYR 988++ for two 😱 We all decided to go for ala carte menu instead.

Food/Price: Salmon Carpaccio (MYR 35) - this tastes like those Chinese dai chau steamed fish but made more atas 🤣 probably cause of the taste of soy sauce + ginger. Not too bad! Generous amount of ikura too.

Avocado gratan (MYR 20) - creamy avocado w/nicely torched cheese and prawn. Portion too small tho.

Eihire Yaki (MYR 25) - Grilled stingray fin recommended by staff. Nothing special, texture quite hard, just a snack to munch on.

Hosomaki - Kappa (MYR 8); Tamago (MYR 9). Also nothing special, just some rice to keep our tummy full 😅

Surumeika Yaki (MYR 55) - Whole squid recommended by staff. Nicely grilled, but wish there was more flavor to it. Must eat with the sauce otherwise it's too bland. Texture wasn't too chewy 👍

Mentaitama Don (MYR 22) - Grilled mayo on omelette w/rice. Also nothing too special, just usual sweet omelette with rice.

Bara Chirashi Don (MYR 68) - Generous amount of assorted sashimi cubes and ikura. Definitely a better choice than #6

Nigiri - Amaebi (MYR 20), Kanpachi (MYR 14), Madai (MYR 16), Shima-aji (MYR 16), Hotate (MYR 20) - I personally did not try this so I can't comment, but those who ordered and tried these said they were very fresh. I find it odd they use brown rice though😅

Ice Cream - 2 scoops per order (MYR 12/flavor) - Yuzu and Black sesame both were good. Refreshing and not too sweet.

Sake (~MYR 200) was good!! I enjoyed this more than the food 🤣

I MIGHT give this restaurant a second try and on my next visit I'll go for more Nigiri or their lunch omakase to see...

Wanted to try the higher quality Japanese food that is not too far from my house and this one came up. Came during lunch time, I called them early just to double check, luckily it was not crowded or fully booked. The staff were very attentive and assigned us a table. The restaurant is not that big just like in Japan. So, they're going for that authenticity Japanese vibe but also control the crowd numbers so that they can serve and cook properly rather than rushing to cook and serve many customers. Ordered the salmon belly, chicken teppanyaki rice, sashimi rice bowl and negitoro Maki too. Each dish was superb and created following the timing and arrangement of serving sushi and sashimi first before the big main meal which was great. The negitoro Maki, which is tuna belly if I'm not mistaken, it was so soft and tasty. I think the sushi rice was prepared in a different way that it became slightly brown colored. Could be light shoyu or something but it was easily one of the best Maki I've ever tasted. The salmon belly sashimi was awesome too. Can taste the fatty texture, very nice in the mouth. The teriyaki chicken rice with onsen egg was pretty good as well. Not too much, just nice portion. The sashimi rice bowl was delicious as well. Fresh sashimi all around. Green tea was quite aromatic as well. Price wise, it is pricey as with all types of fine dine restaurants, so just be prepared to spend money here but if you're going for that Japanese food premium quality, this can be that place for you. Will come again soon and try...

I'd like to apologise in advance for not taking pictures. It's my personal habit of not using my phone when I'm dining in places with high prestige so I can fully immerse myself with the dining experience.

I ordered: Kiku sashimi platter Salmon mentaiyaki Kaisen futomaki Chawanmushi

The first piece on that platter was hotate, which unfortunately wasn't fresh. That had lowered my rating down to 4* on my first bite, as I wasn't able to enjoy the rest of the slices anymore. But objectively speaking, the rest were fine. One thing I like is the freshness of wasabi served on the platter!

Salmon and futomaki - nothing extraordinary. One thing to note, that the seaweed in futomaki wasn't sliced neatly on some areas. I believe the knife played a part.

Chawanmushi marked the most disappointing conclusion of my dining experience as: The texture was not smooth (water droplets caused the egg custard to have holes) The chicken piece was not fresh and it was extremely prominent in a rather bland dish that spoilt everything Topping it off is an extremely overcooked (hence chewy) prawn piece

I'd wanna give 2* solely on dishes but it wouldn't be fair for the great service of the waitresses serving us. Hence a neutral 3* review.

Will I go again? My review...