Ichi Zen Pavilion KL — Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur

Been a frequent visitor of this restaurant for years. But was deeply disappointed by the service and attitude of the lady manager on our recent visits n last Saturday.

Ordered a set of sashimi but the red sashimi part have so many tendons and we couldn't even chew it properly. Quality of other part of fish (white meat and salmon) was as usual, good and fresh. But not for the red sashimi. We told the waiter and he went to spoke to the lady manager for a very long time

After some time, the lady manager came with an arrogant bad attitude and told us it was not quality problem, but aparently it was the chef have cut the wrong part for us. No apologies made.

Yes, Quality have no issue but the part that was served was so chewy and full of tendons and we couldn't even swallow it. As a lady manager, when customer told you the immediate problem, you should had apologize with the right attitude that the chef did cut the wrong part for us and just serve us back isn't it? As a manager, please reflect on your attitude while serving on the customer. We did pay for the food and we deserve to get a right quality of food.

When we told the feedback, why did the lady manager act as if it was not the restaurant problem and we as customer are being challenged back ?we did pay for the sashimi and we have been frequent visitors of this restaurant for years as well. Hopefully the lady manager will read this review...

Didn't feel like having something heavy thus chose this slightly 'unique' selection on the menu - Truffle Shirataki (aka Shirataki noodles with truffle sauce and chasu) plus a Mentai Aburi Tamago (additional protein)

When the noodles came, I was quite taken aback by the portion cos it looks so little! Chopsticks over the bowl for scale reference.

However when I dug into the dish, I was pleasantly surprised that it tasted very good! The truffle sauce was full of flavour and the umami-ness. The creaminess of the sauce was not too overpowering and coated the noodles very well. The truffle taste is definitely there so it was great. The noodles were also cooked well - Shirataki noodles can be chewy or hard if not cooked well.

The chasu cubes also tasted great - slightly charred, and have a good chew. One thing I liked was that the chasu cubes were not too 'fat'. Overall, there were probably two or three cubes of fat while the others were a combination of lean and lean/fat.

In the end, the portion was just right for me. If it was any larger, I would have felt a bit cloying with the cream/truffle sauce.

The Tamago was just Tamago. The portion to me was decent and the eggs were well seasoned and cooked. Not overly sweet like other restaurants and cooked just right so it's still soft and fluffy.

Overall, I would come back for the truffle noodles - less guilt since it's...

Had dinner and tried a wide variety of dishes. Overall, sushi and sashimi was good, but stay away from the fried dishes - could be a new guy on the fryer, YMMV.

Salmon sashimi was generous and fresh. 👍🏼

Scallop sashimi (hotate) was not bad, but not quite as fresh. Probably wouldn’t get it again.

Aburi sushi was good! 👍🏼

Ikurachawanmushi was also good - egg was smooth and went well with the Ikura.

Ebi tempura was really disappointing. Seemed over-fried and batter was chewy.

Similar for the fried chicken skin, which was also chewy, tasteless, and oily.

Tried the volcano roll as it was part of the birthday promo (doesn’t need to be your birthday month, just need to go on your birthday week - e.g. if your birthday is on the 1st of Jan, you can go in the first week of any month to enjoy the promo). Volcano Roll was not good - the dressing seemed to be inspired by thousand island, which wasn’t really a good match.

Curry Cheese Hotplate gyoza, although not quite a traditional Japanese dish, will appeal to locals. We liked it! 👍🏼

Butter clams (Asari) was tasty, although some of the shells had shattered into the dish during cooking, making it a bit hard to eat.

Edit: Manager spoke to us and shared that the volcano roll was her favourite. So we scraped off the thousand island and tried it again. Not bad. So may be a matter of...