Rakuzen Publika — Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur

Such a disgrace to your other brands and outlets.

Firstly, was seated at the cover of the sushi bar overlookong pots and pans. Didn't mind that, small matter.

No customary hot towel was given, while the lady beside who came after was presented with one.

When the sauces were given, I requested for a sweet sauce from the manager (presumably), and was not given.

Miso soup and chawanmushi arrived. Both was not served hot like it usually would. No Chinese spoon was given. So I requested. And waited, and waited. Manager was standing at the cashier. Lost my patience, walked over to the cashier. He was still busy on his phone until I raised my voice a little to get his attention. Asked him why the service was so bad. Soup has already gotten cold. Sweet sauce wasn't given. Was given a new soup, but I don't dare touch it, so left it aside.

Salmon sashimi was so thin. Is this part of cost control?? Your sushi rice was not held together, but kept crumbling apart. Awful! What has happened to your food quality?? You should learn a thing or two from sushi zanmai - for years their quality has remained the same! And you guys charge premium!

I can overlook all these had the service been better. Really spoilt the evening, and my dinner experience. I have been a patron for more than 10 years to both rakuzen and zanmai. This is the first time the experience has been so appaling.

Have I not been from the fnb industry myself, I would have walked away from the restaurant. Totally unacceptable. It was 820 on a Friday night. If you guys can cope with the service, or do not have manpower to cope, have the decency to control the seating and pace yoirselves! Instead of compromising your service and the value of...

We booked a table 24 hours in advance. They seated us at 7pm in a nice small semi quiet room - at least sounds from screaming children were muffled. The waiter was also nice to give us the sauce we requested even though it wasn’t on the menu.

Waiter took our orders by 7.06pm.

7.27pm - waiter comes in with a free salad and apologised that he didn’t (forgot) put in our order.

7.40pm - mum’s food came.

7.42pm - 2 side orders came

7:45pm - sis” food came. Also found out the waiter didn’t put in my order at all! He then promised it will take 5 - 6 mins to get my food ready.

7:53pm - my food finally came. A little over the promised time but at least it came.

Basically, it took almost an hour for all the food to come because our order wasn’t put into the system in the first place.

Conclusion: too busy a night = bad service for customers. Needs refresher training for every level to not miss orders even during busy nights as all restaurants are wont to be.

Was too irritated and hangry to take pictures of the food except...

rakuzen has made its name being fairly decent japanese cuisine at mid-range price. it used to be much better and cuts were thicker & servings more generous and beautifully presented. now not only the price has been increased, everything has shrank in portion.

a couple months back i ordered the chirashi don, amd was surprised that the bowl size they serve the don in has shrank. the cut of sashimi were paper thin. anyway, i dont go there as often as i used to since i prefer to go to other izakayas nowadays, so i shrugged it off as a one-off incident.

this time, i ordered everything a la carte as i thought things would turn out better. the sushi i ordered was so small, i thought it was served for a toddler. the cut of my otoro was really bad too. other things like grilled fish and salads were still ok. but if i am ever here again, I'll avoid ordering any...