Hanamizuki Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Palmerston North

I adore most Japanese food, so I was excited to have dinner here, based on what I saw on the menu. My partner and I ordered quite the variety of dishes, the majority of which were excellent.

We began with the hanetsuki gyoza. I am not exaggerating when I say that this was the best gyoza I've had in Palmerston North. The base was crispy, and the pork and chives filling was juicy and nicely seasoned.

This was followed by the salmon and tuna sashimi. Both fish were fresh and flavourful. They were also quite large slices, which is a nice change from the slivers other restaurants tend to give.

Our choice of sushi was their original "Rock ‘N’ Roll", which sounded the most unique. It came out looking a bit of a mess, but the flavour combination more than made up for this. We were especially impressed by the prawn tempura inside the roll, which was crunchy and delicious, despite being surrounded by moister ingredients. However, I personally thought that the bitterness of the snow pea shoots detracted from overall experience a bit.

Next was their agedashi tofu. This is one of our favorite dishes, so we were especially looking forward to it. Thankfully, what we got was absolutely delicious, perhaps even the best. The flavour of the tofu stood out, even in the midst of the salty and umami dadhi sauce, and the crisp exterior held up incredibly well.

Unfortunately, once the pork ramen soup arrived, our experience was soured. From the very first sniff, something was very wrong. It literally smelled like I was walking down an aisle of Chinese dried herbs. While confusing, I did not want to judge it yet, so I tried the broth. It tasted just as strange, lacking any presence of the rich pork flavour the description promised. It felt like random sachets from old instant noodles had been thrown together to create this mystery liquid. At least the pork itself was decent.

Our final course was the tempura udon. We were so glad to see that this was bounds ahead of the ramen. The tempura prawn, pumpkin, and kumara were excellent. However, the noodles themselves were just average. Strangely, some tempura broccoli was also included. There's nothing wrong with that in theory, but its bitterness clashed with the sweeter flavours of everything else in an unpleasant way in this scenario.

The service was good, with attentive floor staff regularly checking on tables. They offered to refill our teapot as soon as they noticed it was empty, and dishes were cleared away promptly. The one issue was that there was seemingly only one chef, which led to long wait times. Maybe we were unlucky on the Tuesday night we came, but be prepared to have some patience.

Overall, I definitely recommend Hanamizuki if you're a fan of Japanese cuisine. It combines traditional flavours with a modern twist at times. We wholeheartedly recommend their sashimi, sushi, gyoza, tofu, and tempura. Try the ramen if you are the morbidly...

If Gordon Ramsey Kitchen Nightmares ever comes to PN he can start here. It was the worst restaurant I have ever been to. Despite there being only 2 other small groups it took over an hour for our miso soup to arrive. The food was reasonably expensive so I was expecting reasonably good meals not the heavily crumbed, double deep fried, dry tiny chunks of 'chicken' that was used in every chicken dish including the 'chicken curry'. (We ordered the banquet). The raw beef was covered in a shiny goo and the miso soup was bland and watery with tofu crumbs floating in it. The salad had a very odd dressing and only one of us got rice (a tiny bowl). Apart from the awful food, there was bad musick, my chair wobbled, dirty dishes were piled high on the servery, and the toilet floor was sticky to walk on. Costing $135 for 3 people ordering a modest amount of food, it was a bad experience that literally left a very bad taste...

Absolutely terrible. 1 hour 30 minute wait for mains, and that’s only because we asked why it was taking so long and they bumped us up the queue. They ran out of Coke Zero and ice and had to go to the restaurants next door to get some. What kind of restaurant is that underprepared?! Food was below average, unflavoured yaki udon with very little chicken and a vegetarian ramen that was basically 2 minute noodles, some miso broth and a couple of carrots on the top that had been boiled to death. When we expressed our dissappointment with the food after the long wait our rude waiter (blonde European young guy) just walked away from our table shaking his head and smirking, didn’t even apologise or say a word to us. The owner apologised a bit and gave us $20 off the meal so I guess that is something. Not worth it - so many better Japanese restaurants in Palmy with great service and delicious food -...