5smaken — Restaurant in Groningen

Last saturday we went out to eat here, expecting great things, especially because of the many good reviews. Unfortunately though, our experience was horrible.

In short, food took forever to arrive (or didn't arrive at all), didn't taste very good, staff was not trained (or very badly trained), and the acoustics inside were very bad.

Long version :) We unfortunately were 10 minutes later than our reserved time. After we stood in the reception area for 5 minutes, a waitress came up and asked if we had made a reservation, which we did. She said to wait for her and she'd come pick us up. And boy did we wait!

She walked by a few times during this waiting time, without any communication on how our table was looking, or maybe an explanation or something for the long wait? Eventually she tells us to follow her to the table and takes our orders for drinks and which menu we'd like. We chose the all you can eat one.

The menu looks great! So does the website, and it's all very functional and easy to use. There are many different dishes, drinks, sides, etc to choose from. From what I could tell, the main three food cuisines/sections are Korean/BBQ, Japanese/sushi, and Chinese/dimsum. From what I remember, the drinks available were standard apart from the bubble tea or boba, and a bunch of cocktails.

We ordered our first round of dishes (3 per person per round) and it arrived around 15+/- minutes later around the same time as the drinks. My partner's cocktail was priced at €9, which may be a metaphor for the 90% ice. The 5 sips he did have tasted good though.

Though the dimsum was very nice, the meat for the K-BBQ was not fantastic. The seasoning was quite bland and the beef was tough, whichever way we cooked it.

The second round I ordered sushi, my partner ordered more meat and dimsum. His dishes took about 20 mins to arrive, in which time we thought it a good idea to order the next round so the waiting time would be less. I waited 40 mins for my sushi before I was able to speak to a waitress. She said she'd look for it, but never returned.

The second waitress I asked repeated my order manually, but alas, no sushi. However, people around us were getting their sushi, some even got dishes without ordering them. (No, the lost dishes were not ours, unfortunately.)

During all of this waiting we tried to have a conversation. This was nice in theory, but the acoustics of the place made it impossible to understand eachother unless we were leaning over the table and hot grill.

Around this time I noticed how the waitresses were serving the guests, including us. They would stand in illogical places when serving drinks or dishes. The group next to us was getting their drinks handed to them but the waitress was half leaning over people but somehow not in reach of the ones she needed to reach.

On our side, empty platters and glasses were stacking up on the "empty" side of the table, while the few new dishes had barely any place left to stand. When a waitress would bring a dish, she would not take anything back with her. On it's own these things wouldn't bother me, but when many things go wrong these things start to really annoy you.

Because the waiting time kept increasing and we were only on our 4th round at two hours in, we decided to leave, since we hadn't any hope left for the arrival of our dishes after I waited almost 80 minutes for my sushi.

When we went to pay our bill, we told the waitress that we had been waiting really very long and had barely eaten because of it, not at all mentioning anything else. She didn't seem to care.

All in all, we ended up paying €90 ish for some poorly seasoned raw meat, 6 dumplings, two small bowls of rice, one cocktail and three sodas....

Helaas, als gast eindigde mijn avond onverwachts in een teleurstellende ervaring.

Er wordt geadverteerd met: “At 5 smaken, we offer all you can eat sushi that will delight your taste buds. With our unlimited sushi options, you can enjoy a wide range of fresh and delicious sushi rolls, sashimi, and nigiri with our Korean BBQ, all for one affordable price. “

Met hoge verwachtingen en enthousiasme hebben wij besloten om een hapje te gaan eten bij 5 Smaken. Lekker genieten van Korean BBQ en Sushi! (Althans, daar gingen wij vanuit)

Het diner kwam langzaam op gang. Wij hadden de eerste ronde besteld maar na 20 minuten was er nog geen eten op tafel. Na 20 minuten de tweede ronde ook alvast besteld waaronder sushi. In de tussentijd de bediening een gentle reminder aangelicht dat wij over zo’n 60 minuten alweer moeten vertrekken.

Na 30 minuten kwam het eten langzaam eraan. Het diner kon beginnen. Tot zover niks negatiefs over het eten. De bediening was behulpzaam en ging kijken waar het eten bleef. Er werd toegelicht dat sushi gerechten wat extra wachttijd vergt vandaag. Prima zolang wij maar lekker kunnen genieten van het eten.

Het rauw vlees wat gebakken moest worden was niet heel bijzonder en prima te eten, niks negatiefs of positiefs daarover. Alle vlees en vis en groente die zelf op de bakplaat bereid moest worden hebben wij tenslotte netjes geconsumeerd.

De sushi daarentegen viel zwaar tegen. Mijn persoonlijke mening/feedback aan jullie, doe ermee wat jullie willen maar herzie of proef aub zelf de kwaliteit van de sushi van vandaag. Het is persoonlijk de slechtste sushi die ik ooit heb geconsumeerd.

De rijst was warm, zeer plakkerig en bestond niet uit losse sushi rijst korrels maar daarentegen kregen wij sushi nigiri’s en maki’s geserveerd bestaande uit een bonk warm, te zure en plakkerige kleefrijst. Ondanks hoe de sushi gerecht gepresenteerd/geserveerd werd hebben wij het geprobeerd om te consumeren. Na het proeven komen wij tot de conclusie dat de sushi naar ons mening misselijkmakend is. de gril gerechten zijn geconsumeerd en de 60 minuten zijn verstreken. Wij besluiten om af te rekenen.

De staf geeft aan dat er vandaag een vervangende sushi chef aan het werk is wat invloed heeft gehad op de kwaliteit van 5 smaken. Desondanks werd tot mijn verbazing alsnog een naheffing belast op de sushi s restjes die niet “volledig” geconsumeerd zijn.

De naheffing is betaald.

De avond geeft mij nogsteeds letterlijk en figuurlijk een zure misselijkmakende nasmaak.

Desondanks geef ik als beoordeling:

Eten 3 sterren: de korean bbq gerechten die zelf gegrild moest worden lag onder mijn persoonlijke korean bbq verwachting, maar desondanks waren de gerechten prima te consumeren. Sushi was serieus een tegenvaller. Dan kan ik begrijpen dat jullie je profileren als een korean bbq restaurant en sushi erbij doen. Maar de sushi kwaliteit van vandaag zorgt voor negatieve ervaringen.

Service 2 sterren: Op de avond niet gevraagd of alles naar wens is. Met name enkel runners voorbij zien komen die gerechten op tafel legt zonder toe te lichte wat er wordt neergelegd. Plus punt van de runner die op verzoek van ons even in de keuken ging kijken waar de gerechten bleven en terug kwam met een update. Wellicht vanwege druk vanaf boven af maar de naheffing die werd opgelegd door de kassa medewerkster was een nare ervaring. Conclusie van meningsverschil, “beste klant; regels zijn regels”.

Ookal zou een naheffing volgens u terecht zijn belast.

Feedback: Laat aub in het vervolg op zijn minst uw personeel vooraf het concept en daarbij de regels uitleggen aan uw gasten, dat is wel zo netjes. Wij hebben vandaag enkel vernomen dat wij via een QR code bestellingen kunnen plaatsen. Achteraf bij het betalen wordt er verwezen naar voorwaarden die in een menu kaart staan, terwijl deze menukaart niet eens op onze tafel aanwezig was.

Sfeer in de restaurant 3 ster: Geen...

2 stars because the waiters were sweet and friendly.

Do not recommend. €40 for 2.5 hours all you can eat however you can order 3 items per person every 10 minutes. Each round took 15-20 minutes to come out so we had already fully put in the second round of orders before we had received any food.

The food itself is not very flavourful, tastes like it’s just out of the freezer and into the steamer/fryer/whatever. With the flavour of the food I was even more confused why such simple things would take so long. Also considering that you can only order 3 items per round, and that they take so long to come out, the portions per order seemed so small. For the “poke bowl” I added a photo) the chicken was sliced so thin it was almost funny.

We sat on the back terrace and walked through an unpleasant looking storage area that appears to have previously been a dining area but now is piling up with items.

The terrace itself was not very clean, I could see pieces of garbage on the floor and dust on the table, so we didn’t use the Korean bbq because I didn’t know how clean it would be.

Save your money and go somewhere else unless this restaurant goes into new management or really changes the way they do things. What a pity since it’s in such...