Rice Kitchen Japanese Takeaway — Restaurant in Albert-Eden

It has been about a year or so since I ate here, so I decided to order some takeaways for a nice easy sunday dinner for wife and me. We ordered the Karaage donburi and the Vege tempura donburi. We went for the large size and ended paying $43 for both meals. Back in the days I never paid this much for the donburi meals but I thought it was a way to cope with rising food costs. To be clear I am not against paying more money for good food that tastes great, but not for food that is substandard and ruins your evening. Let me elaborate on what my wife and I experienced.

-Vege tempura donburi: Half of the tempura vegetables were burnt, you could see that it was a brown black colour and the taste was bitter and acrid. The chef's cooking technique failed here as he probably didn't pay attention to the cooking or maybe got lazy? Not an excuse since I was the first customer to place the order, and there was no 'rush'. There is also a lack of variety of veges in the dish, and if you are charging the same price as a protein based donburi, as a customer you'd expect something to the same value.

-Karaage chicken donburi: I believe because the chef used the same oil he burnt the tempura in, or even other food he cooked, the same oil was used to do the Karaage chicken. I could tell the seasoning of the chicken was well done and very tasty BUT the burnt oil was a huge let down as the aftertaste of eating into the Karaage chicken left a very unpleasant aftertaste and also not a nice feeling in your stomach.

Overall, there are a number of fundamental problems with Rice Kitchen. The prices have gone up but the value or consistency of great tasting dishes is not there. The chef needs to realise this since there are many other competing takeaways in the same area.

I read somewhere that the owner had changed but it would seem that the problems are still there and nothing has been done to improve the business except jacking up the prices. I am afraid I can't recommend coming here for anyone that is after a Japanese meal, there are other places that would do a better job and especially chefs who would not dare smudge the reputation of quality...

Got the salmon katsu bento, yakiniku beef bento, takoyaki balls and karaage chicken side.

Service was ok. Atmosphere was alright.

Sadly even though we ordered salmon katsu bento, we discovered they gave us chicken. We already drove all the way home and couldn’t be bothered going back. But felt sad since the salmon was more expensive. The ‘chicken’ katsu batter wasn’t the best. But the rest was ok. The beef from the other bento was a bit too dry though the marinade tasted ok. The karaage was ok. We would not get the takoyaki again. We love octopus, and anyone who does would be disappointed. Some of the balls only had 1 small peice of octopus inside. One of the 6 had 3 small bits. So we felt like it was not the best from what we’ve tried in Auckland.

Overall. The food was...

Oh I was just very disappointed because I waited 35 minutes to receive my order and there were only 2 people in front of me when I arrived. The chef and the cashier were both very confused and spent more time reading tickets than they did preparing food.

When they finally completed my order it sat behind the counter for another 5 minutes before they delivered it to me as I stood and watched. By the time I made it home (only 5 more minutes) it was luke warm and soggy. I'm sure it was a perfectly good chicken katsu donburi at first, but the service was so very poor that by the time it made it to my mouth it...