El Japonez — Restaurant in Mexico City

The decor was great. The rest of the experience...meh.

Disclaimer: we were tourists from the United States who don't speak great Spanish. The service might feel better if you speak Spanish. I wouldn't necessarily expect a restaurant in Mexico City to accommodate English speaking guests but in this neighborhood it was sort of the norm everywhere else we ate. The oddities of the service here seemed unique to El Japonez.

The minute we sat down we were sort of descended upon by a waiter and mobile sashimi cart, immediately asking (demanding?) what sashimi we wanted before we'd even seen a menu. I experienced less aggressive sales people on the boats of Xochimilco. It got dinner off on a bit of a sour note.

The menu was only available online as a pdf...we managed but it would have been a lot easier to use Google translate if it had been available as a website or on paper.

We had some salmon sashimi (which was actually excellent), two basic rolls, and a specialty roll. Along with 3 glasses of wine it came to about $100 usd. The price was fine except the two basic rolls weren't very good. They were fine...just with an excessive amount of sort of sweet rice. The specialty roll was good but not good enough to make up for the others.

It wasn't terrible but there are a lot of great restaurants in the area, you'd be fine to...

We visited El Japonez today to celebrate two birthdays. The service was great and overall the food was amazing. Here, you can go safe to orden classic sushi rolls that you might have tried in other places, but my recommendation is to date to try some of the signature dishes that are really worth of trying.

With this in mind, my recommendation is to order the rib eye rolls... Simply amazing. Also there is a signature roll that is lighted up at your table called El Patron: An spicy tuna roll with species with a mixed sauce made is Siracha, Mayonnaise and the house sauce. The Volcanes week also increíble: three small tostadas to taste different seasoned flavours: Shrimp, rib eye and tuna. Cocktails are very good also. We had some grilled pineapple cocktail with lemon and mezcal and other with berries. Both were great and fresh.

Of course, I ordered Mezcal and it is very well presented with grilled fruits and vegetables. I recommend the Pierde Almas Tobala mezcal here. It is difficult to find somewhere else and it good to remind you that although you are at a Japanese restaurant, you are still...

Interior: 5 stars Sushi rolls quality: 1 star Service: 3 stars

The place looks really nice from outside and inside. Recommend to sit inside and not on the terrace. Service is ok - took the waiters very long for all steps from bringing menu to getting check. But at least they were nice and friendly!

However, the biggest disappointment is also the main criteria: the quality of rolls and nigiri is just below any standards. Nigiri rice was not sticky and the nigiri fell apart immediately. Rice taste is super artificial and a bit sour. All ingredients were just ok. Not very fresh. The taste was worse than any other sushi place I tried.

Also, this place is Fusion and not Japanese. You know this immediately by the way sushi look, the fact that every waiter has a stereotypical Japanese word on their back and that at the end you get Chinese fortune cookies.

Considering the price (50 USD per person) for Mexican proportions, this was really bad. Parking and traffic is horrible as well in the area, but I don’t even count it in my 2 star review. Because this place does not deserve 1 star to be...