Tanuki — Restaurant in Amsterdam

I wish zero or negative rating was possible for this restaurant. Worst dining experience ever.

First of all, this is not a Japanese Cafe. The foods might have been given Japanese names, but they are not, the food is more like a poor and sad imitation of some Asian country which is yet to be discovered. We ordered four appetisers, grilled fish, grilled eggplants, grilled shitake mushroom, and shrimps. All the foods were extremely dry and tasteless. The mushroom was so dry, flattened out, and burnt out, it did not taste like shitake, more like burnt charcoal. The same was true for the eggplant and fish. So dry and hard, I thought I was eating some nicely fold origami. If only the cook has ever thought to put some seasoning and oil before he or she put the food on the grill.

Second of all, the service was extremely poor and rude. Make it outrageously rude. We ordered a pot of jasmine tea, the waitress poured the tea immediately without waiting for the tea to brew, on the table. Yes, I typed table not cups. Our table was covered with tea, she just smiled idiotically and said the fakest sorry I had ever seen and just left us to clean the spoiled table and a tea pot half-empty. Then they served the appetisers. Everytime, we just took a bite and try to enjoy the burnt food somehow, they were about to remove our plates. I had to protect my plates on the dirty able, just to be able to chew some food. And not only one waitress, but four (!) waitresses were about to remove everything from our table while we were still eating and chewing our dinner. I asked them politely to leave us alone in Dutch, but all I got was a very unapologetic grind, I do not think they speak Dutch. After three times, I had to sush them with my hand and told them literally to stay away from our table, with no luck, as another waiter came by to remove the last fish. As if the war to enjoy our dinner was not bad enough, the waitresses were walking around with dirty boxes for the dish washer full with dirty plates and left-over food in the restaurant around 21.00, hurrying up the customers and ruining the last hope of having a peaceful dinner.

Stay away from this restaurant, just stay at home and fry some eggs and eat your...

The servers were really friendly and genuinely keen to help, so that’s great and made the dining experience very pleasant. Food-wise, some hits, some misses. The raw scallop salad with miso sauce - scallop was fresh but the miso sauce was way too ‘heavy’/ overpowering, which was uncalled for given how delicate the scallop’s taste was. The wagyu beef - I doubt it was really wagyu grade - chewy & tasted not too bad, but not melt-in-mouth tender as you would expect wagyu beef to be, & the oil used to pan fry it didn’t taste fresh, which was unfortunate. The rest of the dishes were not bad - aburi (meaning torched for a slightly burnt taste on the outside) scallop & salmon sushi were nice. Tuna not so much. The skewed grilled pork belly & chicken thigh with scallion were both juicy & well-flavoured. They made a little mistake with the green tea I ordered - it came with a lemon taste at first, & when I mentioned that to the wait staff, they seemed to know exactly what happened (something about using lemon to clean something.. didn’t quite catch the explanation), they immediately changed it for me & in the final bill, waived the charges. Overall quite a pleasant experience. I’m a tourist, so wouldn’t be a repeat customer, but would otherwise come back to try their sashimi, which I believe...

The unagi bowl and tuna sashimi bowl were not dissappointing and pleasant to the eyes. Loved the fact they added tamago/eggs to the unagi bowl, making it extra delicious. Really enjoyed their unagi dish, definitely the best unagi I have tasted so far in the Netherlands. Wanted to try their sliced beef since it looks so good in the picture, but when it came, it looked totally different. Cuts were too big and the meat was very tough to chew. Not sure whether it was bad quality or overcooked? But it was lacking beef taste, so a disappointing dish.

The grilled fish was ok, but not delicious or worthy enough to order next time. The sushis were expensive, but it was nice to have lots of options. They also have lunch deals with sushis, which are nice to try so do recommend to try their lunch menu.

The fried vegetables looks and tasted like a Chinese dish, but none the less it was tasty with the bamboo shoots. The soup noodles tasted good, but the toppings were fried and too oily so making it delicious. Didn’t expect the gyoza dumplings to be fried as well. The chicken skewers were ok.

Service can be slow sometimes depending on who. Some of them are friendly, but some of them are not, so see if you are lucky who...